


When Everything Comes Crashing Down

by NarryMusings



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied Sexual Content Involving Minors, Infidelity, M/M, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:15:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 106,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9259829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarryMusings/pseuds/NarryMusings
Summary: Niall groans, kicks the sheets off of his legs before pushing himself to feet and stalking towards his bedroom window. He opens the curtain, sighs when he sees Harry crouched on the other side of the window pane- But he opens the window anyway. "How many times have I told you not to climb up here?" Niall hisses. He curls a hand around Harry's bicep and pulls him inside. "You're gonna get hurt again. And since you've already sprained your ankle, you're running the risk of re-breaking the bone and-"He stops when he notices Harry's ruddy cheeks and wet eyes. "What's wrong?" he asks softly, a lump in his throat.Harry opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out."Harry," Niall says. This time his voice sounds just as panicked, and he feels it. "Haz, what's wrong?""Z-Zayn," he stutters, pausing to clear his throat.Niall blinks. "What about him?"Harry stares at him; looks lost and confused."Harry, you're scaring me. What-""He was in an accident."





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the thing I started writing wayyyyyyyy back in October, but put on hold in order to write A Very Narry Christmas with Ryan. It's not quite ready yet, but I thought I'd give you guys a little bit of tease ;)

[One]

_Tap_

_Tap Tap_

_Taptaptap_

_Niall groans, kicks the sheets off of his legs before pushing himself to feet and stalking towards his bedroom window. He opens the curtain, sighs when he sees Harry crouched on the other side of the window pane- But he opens the window anyway. "How many times have I told you not to climb up here?" Niall hisses. He curls a hand around Harry's bicep and pulls him inside. "You're gonna get hurt again. And since you've already sprained your ankle, you're running the risk of re-breaking the bone and-"_

_He stops when he notices Harry's ruddy cheeks and wet eyes. "What's wrong?" he asks softly, a lump in his throat._

_Harry opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out._

_"Harry," Niall says. This time his voice sounds just as panicked, and he feels it. "Haz, what's wrong?"_

_"Z-Zayn," he stutters, pausing to clear his throat._

_Niall blinks. "What about him?"_

_Harry stares at him; looks lost and confused._

_"Harry, you're scaring me. What-"_

_"He was in an accident."_

_"What? What are you-"_

_"He crashed his car, Niall..."_

_Niall gasps, and then it's like all of the air has left his lungs. "What?" he breathes._

_"Trisha called me and she said he's in surgery but- He might not make it."_

_Niall’s knees are week. His stomach plummets, his heart feels like it’s in his mouth, and- No. There’s no way…_

_"I have to go, I have to be there but- Can you come with me?"_

_"Yeah. Yeah, just-" he cuts himself off as he grabs a shirt out of his hamper with shaky hands. "Just let me tell Bobby."_

_They're on the road in minutes. Niall's behind the wheel of Harry's car because Harry's far too shaky and distracted._

_Niall knows he shouldn't, but he reaches one hand out to hold Harry's anyway-_

_And that's when it happens. Somehow – and Niall's not sure how – he loses control of the wheel._

_The car spins._

_And spins._

_And then it slams into a telephone pole._

_There's a sickening crunch, and a shatter of glass, and there's blood...everywhere._

**

He wakes with a start. Jolts in his seat so hard that he startles the old man next to him. He offers a weak apology, wipes the thin layer of sweat across his forehead with the sleeve of his jumper, and then settles back against the seat. 

"Bad dream?" the old man asks.

"Yeah," Niall breathes. "Something like that." He looks out the window, takes in the puffy white clouds and gold sky. He quite likes flying. And he's dreading the fact that he's going to be getting off the plane in less than an hour. 

He hasn't stepped foot on British soil in years, is the thing. Just a few months shy of four years, to be exact. He literally hasn't been home in three and a half years, has tried everything to avoid coming back here – from getting his family to fly out to LA, to requesting that they do the holidays at his grandmother's place in Mullingar, Ireland. _Coming home_ is a bit of a terrifying concept.

It makes him wonder how long he would have stayed away, had it not been...mandatory that he come back. He wonders how long he could have gotten away with avoiding England altogether. Thinks maybe after this trip, he should move the rest of his stuff to LA, and make his flat there his permanent residence.

X

Bobby's the first person he sees. All 50 years, greying hair, ruddy cheeks, and broad shoulders of him, among a crowd of people waiting for their persons, with a sign that says 'NIALLER' in one hand. 

Theo is the second, and probably the most important, person he sees. Tiny, three year old, blond-haired, blue-eyes, most adorable baby on the planet, Theo Horan.

The toddler squeals excitedly when he sees Niall, and it makes his heart melt. He tries to break free of the grip his grandpa has on his hand in favour of running towards his uncle, but Bobby is both too smart and too strong.

Niall picks him up the moment he reaches the two of them, tosses Theo into the air playfully, and then crushes him gently against his chest the moment he catches him. And, suddenly, this tiny human being makes Niall feel a whole lot better about being back in England. 

"Hi, Nile," Theo says softly, once he's pulled his face out of the crook of Niall’s neck. He’s still learning how to pronounce Niall’s name, and Niall thinks it’s the single most adorable thing in the world. He looks up at Niall with wide, wondrous eyes and a big smile.

“Hi Theo,” he murmurs back. “Hi Theo’s new teeth.”

Theo grins even bigger. “All there!” 

“Don’t mind me, I’m just the chauffeur.”

Niall looks over Theo’s shoulder, smiles gently at his father. “Hey, da.”

Bobby reaches a hand out, then, and curls it around the back of Niall’s neck to bring him in for a hug. Niall lets himself be pulled in, rests his forehead against his dad’s shoulder, and breathes a sigh of relief. Theo squeals delightedly at being squished between them as he continues to cling to Niall’s neck.

“How was your flight?” Bobby asks when he pulls away. He reaches around Niall to grab the handle of his suitcase before he leads the way to the main entrance.

“It was alright, I guess,” Niall shrugs. “I slept through most of it.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” the blond lies.

He’s been having regular nightmares for years now; usually at least a few per month. They always involve Harry. There’s always a car crash. And Harry always – _always_ – dies. He thinks it’s karma. And nobody else needs to know about it.

X

Stepping over the threshold of his childhood home, is like stepping into a time capsule. Nothing has changed. Not the colour on the walls, not the family photographs hung on the wall in the small hallway that leads to the rest of the house, not the wallpaper in the living room, or the old painting in the dining room, not even the cupboards in the kitchen. Everything is exactly the same.

Niall’s not sure if that makes him feel more at home, or more alienated than anything. Because while everything looks exactly the same, everything feels completely different. Foreign. In fact, the only thing that stops him from fleeing altogether is Theo’s tiny hand in his as the littlest Horan pulls him through the house.

Greg and Denise are in the kitchen. Denise, his sister-in-law, and Theo’s fantastic mother, is the first of the two to get to her feet. She welcomes him with a warm smile, open arms, and a, “It’s nice to have you home again, Niall.”

Niall hugs her back when she reaches out for him, curls his arms around her back and rests his chin on her shoulder. He’s never really been all that close with her, but she’s familiar in the way that an old friend might be. She’s a bit of a comfort, despite everything.

Greg’s welcome is a little bit less than enthusiastic. He and Niall have never really gotten on, and it’s only gotten worse in the four years that Niall has been gone – despite his attempt at regular contact, if for nobody else’s sake, admittedly, than Theo’s. So Niall supposes that Greg’s firm handshake is as good as he’s going to get.

“How was your flight?” Denise asks, as she sets a teacup in front of him after they’ve moved to the dining room table. “Black, three sugars. Just the way you like it, right?”

“Thanks,” Niall murmurs. “My flight was alright. Same old, same old.”

“Not that you’d really know what that’s like,” Greg mutters.

“Greg,” Bobby warns. “There will be no fighting these next two weeks. Quit it.”

Niall sighs. “It’s alright, da-“

“It’s not alright. You’ve not been home in four years, and now that you are, it’s under grave circumstances. I won’t tolerate making this week, especially, any harder on any of us than it needs to be. No fighting, got it?”

Both brothers agree with a short nod of each of their heads.

“Now, Niall,” Bobby starts, changing the subject – but only slightly. “Greg and I picked up our suits yesterday, but you’ll need to go and make sure yours doesn’t need any alterations. I’ve booked you an appointment at the tailor’s in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“Uncle Nile?”

Niall looks down to his right, where Theo is tugging gently on the sleeve of Niall’s jumper to get his attention. “Yes, bud?”

“Can you come outside and play wit’ me?”

“Niall still has to get himself settled in, baby,” Denise says softly. “Plus, he just had a really long flight and he’s probably tired.”

Theo shakes his head. “Nile sleeped on the plane.”

Niall laughs softly. “That is true, but mum’s right, little man. I have to take all my stuff upstairs and get settled in.”

“I help? I wanna show you Bobs’ tricycle.”

Denise giggles. “It’s your tricycle, Theo. Bobs just bought it for you.”

“That’s what I said.”

‘Tell you what,” Niall says, as he pushes his chair out. He turns his whole body around so that he’s facing Theo, and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees – so that they’re really face-to-face. “How about I go get meself settled in, and then if we have time before dinner, you can show me Bobs’ tricycle? Deal?”

“Deal!” Theo shouts excitedly. He pushes his hand out, waits patiently for Niall to shake it.

X

Theo is like a literal ray of sunshine on this gloomy, cloudy day. He’s the thing that makes you forget about the storm brewing, if only for a little while, because he’s bright and beautiful and oh-so innocent. He’s been driving his tricycle around in circles in the driveway for about 10 minutes, now, and he grins at Niall every time he sees him, like it’s the first time all over again.

“He adores you,” comes Greg’s voice from behind. He’s just stepping outside, joining him on the stoop, when Niall looks over his shoulder.

“The feeling is mutual.”

“No, like, I’m pretty sure he thinks you’re a superhero or something.”

Niall snorts, scoots his arse over so that he’s closer to the wall to let Greg sit down beside him.

“Sorry about earlier,” his brother says softly.

“It’s okay,” the blond shrugs.

Greg shakes his head. “Denise says I need to be a bit more understanding,” he explains. “And I am trying, Niall, I just… We miss you around here. It would be nice if you came to visit more often, and- Theo would love it.”

“I know,” Niall whispers. “I just…haven’t been ready.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Greg gets up shortly after, calls Theo inside to wash up for dinner – and then the two of them leave Niall to linger a few moments longer on the stoop.

He looks up and down the road, and notices that nothing has changed outdoors either. Not the houses, not the cars in the driveways, not the trees or the foliage.

Everything is exactly the same as Niall left it.

++

_“Do you think it’s weird that I still have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I’ve only got, like, four more months to decide?”_

_Niall raises a skeptical eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s right, but- No, I don’t think it’s weird.”_

_“I think it’s weird,” Harry mutters, sprawling himself across the width of Niall’s bed. “I mean- Zayn wants to be an artist, Louis wants to be a teacher, Liam is basically a superhero anyway so of course he wants to be a firefighter, and you’re going to be a some hot shot golf club owner someday – and then there’s me, who can’t decide if I want to be a lawyer, a writer, or a baker.”_

_Niall sighs, spins the chair at his desk around to look at Harry, even though Harry is too busy staring up the ceiling. “First of all, ‘hot shot golf club owner’ is a huge leap-“_

_“No it isn’t,” the brunette protests. “You’re top of your business class.”_

_“I haven’t even gotten in.”_

_“Yet.”_

_The blond rolls his eyes as he pushes himself to his feet. He walks the few steps between his desk and his bed, crawls onto the latter beside Harry and leans his back against the wall. “Second, you’ve got all the time in the world to figure it out, Harry.”_

_“Not if I want to go to Uni next year.”_

_“Then take a year off.”_

_“And do what?”_

_Niall shrugs. “Whatever you want to do.”_

_Harry looks at him sternly. “I don’t know what I want to do, Niall, that’s the problem.”_

_Niall hates how stressed out he looks, hates how it’s making Harry feel. “Can I ask you a question?”_

_Harry nods._

_“Have you ever thought about photography?” He waits for Harry to respond, but Harry only blinks at him – which is, he supposes, a response in and of itself. “Ever since you got that camera for Christmas last year, you’ve barely put it down. You’re like a paparazzi, always taking pictures of me.”_

_“You’re very photogenic,” Harry smirks._

_Niall rolls his eyes again, despite the smile tugging at his lips._

_“Are you trying to confuse me even more?”_

_“No, babe- Never,” he says softly, brushing a hand through Harry’s hair. “It’s just… Being a lawyer is something your dad has always wanted for you, and being a baker – while I know you do love to bake – isn’t exactly what you’re passionate about, and you’re really good at writing, but you haven’t been writing very much lately… And I’ve just noticed that you’re quite passionate about photography, so-“ He cuts himself off the moment he’s got a lap full of Harry._

_Harry, who’s straddling his thighs and holding his face between both hands. Harry, whose eyes are soft and beautiful, whose smile is warm and fond, whose lips are smooth and luscious- “Hi,” he whispers._

_“Hi,” Niall murmurs back._

_“The truth is, I have thought about photography.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_Harry nods, pressing his forehead against Niall’s. “I’ve thought about travelling the world and taking pictures everywhere, and I’ve thought about doing photoshoots, and opening a studio, but- I wasn’t sure if it was something that I could actually pursue.”_

_“That would be quite the future. Maybe you should think about it some more then, huh?”_

_“Maybe I will.”_

++

Sometimes regular, and relatively good dreams – or, well, memories – are more painful than the nightmares.

X

His first order of business the following morning is _Phillip Alexander_ , a tailor in Cheshire.

He’s got a suit – he has two, actually. One stuffed in the back of his closet, which he wore to the year-end formal four years ago. And the one he wore to Greg and Denise’s wedding – although that’s more of a tuxedo. He might still fit into it, but he doesn’t much fancy wearing the same tuxedo he wore to a wedding, to his mother’s funeral.

The suit has already been picked out for him. A plain black suit, with a black tie. It’s simple, yet smart – and all he has to do is make sure it fits. Lucky for him, it fits pretty perfectly, so he just has to pay for it.

His second order of business is the liquor store, because he reckons that his father’s cellar isn’t nearly as stocked as it should be, due to last the next two weeks.

He’s picking up a case of 24 Stellas, about to turn around and head back up towards the counter at the front of the store, when he nearly barrels someone over. He curses, and apologizes, and when he looks up, it’s to see a tall, slim, blond-haired girl with a pale face and bright red lips looking back at him. “Uh, sorry,” he apologizes again. He recognizes her from years ago, though he’d barely ever spoken to her. “Taylor. Swift, right?”

“For now, yes,” she giggles, bringing her left hand up to flash the rock on her finger at him.

“Congratulations.”

She smiles prettily. “Thank you. I feel like I haven’t seen you around here in, like- Forever.”

“I’ve been living in the states,” Niall responds.

“True. You left right out of secondary school,” she remembers. “Right after-“ She cuts herself off, and a look of something like sadness, Niall thinks, settles onto her face. “Sorry, I-“

“It’s fine,” he says quickly. “I, um- I have to get going.”

“Right, yeah,” she whispers, stepping to the side so that he can squeeze between her and the shelf next to her. “Oh, I’m also sorry to hear about your mother.”

“Thank you.”

He makes a beeline for the cash register, then. The sooner he gets out of here, the sooner people stop looking at him like they know him – like they pity him, for one reason or another, and the sooner he can get to his house, and pretend like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Even the young, barely 18 year old lad behind the counter looks like he wants to tell Niall he’s sorry, and he just really, really wishes people would stop feeling sorry for him.

He nearly trips out the door, in his haste to leave the store, and then practically stumbles all the way to Bobby’s old car. He tosses the case of beer in the back seat, alongside his suit, and then more or less throws himself into the driver’s seat. One deep breath, two deep breaths, three deep breaths- And then he puts the car in drive, and all but peels out of the parking lot.

Something catches his eye as he’s waiting to merge into traffic. Or, rather, someone. Someone he hasn’t seen in approximately four years. It’s nothing more than a flash of dark brown curls and a beautiful face – but it’s enough to make him feel as if he’s just seen a ghost.

**

_Tick_

_Tock_

_Tick_

_Apart from the steady, rhythmic sound of the third hand on the clock hanging on the wall in the waiting room, it’s quiet. Almost too quiet. That’s one reason he’s always disliked hospitals. (Other reasons include: linen that almost smells too clean, the fact that people are sick, or injured, or…worse.)_

_He’s alone, and he can’t tell if that’s comforting or not. Sometimes, during a crisis, he likes to be surrounded by people for moral and emotional support – and other times, he likes to process things alone. And right now he’s alone, and he’s thankful for it, but he also sort of hates it._

_Beep_

_Beep_

_Beeeeeep_

_It’s funny – or not funny at all, he’s sure – how quickly things happen. How, eight hours ago, he was cracking open his first of too many beers. How, six hours ago, Zayn had nearly beat his door down before Niall had been able to get to it. How, merely an hour ago, Harry had crawled through his window and Niall hadn’t even remembered falling asleep._

_And now here he is, alone, in the middle of a waiting room just… Waiting. Hoping. Praying to a God he isn’t sure he believes in – at least not anymore. That Zayn will be okay. That Harry will be okay._

_That everyone – all of the people he loves and cherishes – will be okay._

_Tick_

_Tock_

_Tick_

_He’s not supposed to be here. None of them are supposed to be here._

_Nobody was supposed to get hurt._

_And yet he’s here. In the hospital. Where doctors treat sick people, and fix injured people, and-_

_And he can’t even think it. He can’t entertain the idea of it. It isn’t an option. It can’t be. It won’t be._

_They have a future. Liam is going to be a real life superhero. Louis is going to be the teacher they wished they had. Niall is going to be a golf club owner. Zayn…he’s going to be an artist. And Harry… Harry is going to follow his heart and study photography instead of law._

_They have a future. A whole world, a whole lifetime, a whole, wondrous adventure ahead of them._

_It can’t be._

_It won’t be._

_Beep_

_“Niall.”_

_Beeep_

_“Niall!”_

_Beeeeep_

_“NIALL!”_

_Niall looks up. Niall sees Louis, first. His face is pale, his eyes are rimmed red, his hair is a mess. And then Niall sees Liam, and Liam looks just as bad as Louis._

_And then Niall sees Trisha. And he sees Anne._

_And then he looks down at his hands, and he wonders if he should be surprised to see them covered in blood._


	2. Two

_"Why are you avoiding me?"_

_Niall stares at the boy in front of him, and his mouth is dry. He wants to blame it on the beer, but he knows that’s not the reason. It’s because he’s nervous, because his heart is hammering away at the inside of his chest, because this boy is beautiful and enigmatic, and Niall misses him. "I'm not avoiding you-"_

_"I'm not stupid, Niall,” Harry snaps. And then he’s wrapping a hand around Niall’s wrist, and dragging him down the hallway. There’s a closet on the left and a bathroom on the right – and Niall’s pretty happy that Harry chooses to pull him into the bathroom. “I know when you’re avoiding me. Why?"_

_The blond sighs as he leans back against the counter. "Because I...can't be around you right now," he admits softly._

_"Niall-"_

_"You're making this harder than it needs to be, Harry. We made a decision, and we need to stick to it. You can't-"_

_"To be fair, you made the decision, not me," Harry points out._

_Niall closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. "Don't do that."_

_"Niall-"_

_"Don't, Harry. Don't make this harder on me, it's not fair."_

_"I just...I miss you," Harry whispers. And then he’s there, in Niall’s space, crowding him against the sink._

_Harry's arms are around him, then, and Niall doesn't have the emotional strength to push him away. He doesn’t have the energy to tell him no. Nor does he want to, if he’s being honest with himself._

_Which is why he lets Harry cradle his face, and press their foreheads together – even though he knows it’s wrong. Which is why he fists his own hands in the fabric of Harry’s Rolling Stones t-shirt and pulls him closer – even though he knows it’s wrong. He wants to blame it on the alcohol – and he could, maybe, given the fact that he can smell Tequila on Harry’s breath, can taste the beer on his own tongue, but he knows that alcohol has nothing to do with it._

_It’s something else entirely. Something much worse._

_And then there's a gasp, and it takes a minute for Niall to realize that it's coming from Harry. When he pulls back to look at the brunette in his arms, there's this faraway look in his gaze and his eyes are glazed over, and there's a bleeding gash on his forehead, and a bruise on his cheek._

_"Harry – Haz!” Niall shouts, his voice cracking with fear and a desperation he’s never felt before._

_Harry’s body sags forwards, again Niall’s, and Niall struggles to keep them both from falling. “Babe, please, what's wrong?" he whimpers._

_Harry doesn't answer. Instead, he falls to the ground at Niall's feet-_

**

Niall wakes up in a cold sweat. His body is wet, his sheets are soaked, and he has to push himself upright just so that he can feel like he can actually breathe. His heart is racing, and his chest is tight, and everything – everything hurts.

He sighs, pushes the sheets off his legs and then swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He welcomes the cool air as it surrounds him, raises goosebumps over his skin. It’s refreshing, and awakening.

A glance at his phone, as he presses the button down to make the screen light up, tells him that it’s only six o’clock. It’s only six o’clock in the morning, and it’s far too early to do much of anything, but he doesn’t want to go back to sleep. So, instead, he pushes himself to his feet, grabs a clean pair of boxer briefs, along with a pair of sweatpants, out of his suitcase, and then makes his way, slowly and tiredly, down the hallway to the bathroom. (He was meant to unpack his suitcase, to stuff his clothes into the drawers of his old dresser, but he hadn’t had the energy, or even the mental capacity in order to do so last night. Besides, keeping his clothes in his suitcase make this feel a lot less…permanent.)

He turns on the water, strips out of his old briefs, and then kicks them into the corner of the bathroom. First, he waits for the water to get warm, before he steps over the lip of the tub and in under the spray from the showerhead. He closes the shower curtain, lets his cool skin get used to the warm temperature of the water, and then he makes it hotter.

The water is almost scalding hot, as he lets it beat down on his back; he revels in the burn of it.

He washes up, eventually, and then stands under the spray a little bit longer, until the water runs cold and he can’t feel his toes.

X

Bobby, Greg, Denise, and are all in the kitchen when he makes his way his downstairs a few hours later. Theo is too preoccupied by some cartoon about patrol dogs on the telly to notice Niall’s presence. Denise is flipping through a magazine, Greg is reading the local newspaper, and Bobby is pouring coffee into a mug, alongside his own.

“You were up early this morning,” Bobby says, as he hands Niall the mug.

Black coffee, the way Niall likes it and the exact thing that he needs first thing in the morning. “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you still having those nightmares?”

Niall nods. “I mean, sometimes. They went away for a while, for the most part.” And that’s…mostly true. They ‘went away’ in that he didn’t get them nearly as frequently as directly after the accident, but he got them…often enough, nevertheless. Especially around things like birthdays and anniversaries.

Bobby frowns. “When did they come back?”

“Last week.” Which is also mostly true, because that’s when they came back full force. He’s not slept through the night without one since Greg rung him last week to tell him that mum had taken a turn for the worse, and wouldn’t survive the night. Niall had wanted to come home earlier, had wanted to see her one last time, but they’d all known it would have been a lost cause and that it would have only made things…worse.

“Are you still seeing the therapist?” Greg asks, peering at him from over the top edge of his newspaper.

“No.”

His father sighs, “Niall-“

“It’s too expensive, da,” Niall starts. “And, besides, it’s not like I don’t already know what’s wrong with me – nor is it as easy as just making it go away. It’s not going away, and therapy won’t get rid of the nightmares.

“They’ve been caused by trauma and altered by…circumstances. I either have them, or I don’t.”

“I still think you need to keep talking to somebody if you won’t talk to any of us – whether about what happened, or about the nightmares,” Bobby says firmly.

Niall rolls his eyes. “The last thing I need is to keep talking about it. What I need is to just…forget any of it ever happened at all.”

There’s a smaller, friendlier voice, then, “Uncle Ni?”

Niall looks down to find Theo looking up at him, his fist clenched around some of the fabric of Niall’s joggers, eyes wide and imploring. He forces himself to smile; can’t bear the idea of Theo thinking he’s the reason for Niall’s foul mood. “G’morning, little man,” he says softly, brushing his right hand – the one that isn’t holding his mug – through the toddler’s hair.

“Daddy said I can ask you to go to the park. You go to the park wit’ me?”

Niall licks his lips. “Are you sure you want to go with _me_?”

Theo nods enthusiastically.

“Sure you don’t want to go with mummy? Or Bobs?”

The shakes his head. “They always take me. You never do.”

Niall frowns at that because, well, his nephew isn’t wrong, and it’s more than a bit heartbreaking. In fact, Niall’s only seen Theo a handful of times since he was born. Theo had been too young the last time he saw him, and they’d been visiting family in Ireland, so- Yeah. Niall’s never really gotten to take Theo to the park. Or do…much of anything with Theo, if he’s being honest. “Just let me feed my tummy first, and then we’ll get your gummies on and be on our way, yeah?”

A smile breaks apart Theo’s tiny face, as he wraps his arms around Niall’s thigh. “Thank you, Nile.”

Niall smiles back, bends down to press a kiss against the top of Theo’s head. “Of course, buddy.”

Theo pads away, then, off towards the living room to watch more TV until Niall calls for him.

++

_“The hair is a bit weird, mate.”_

_A hand ruffles at the head of newly blond hair on Niall’s head, and Niall scowls as he fights his friend away from him._

_“ZAYN!” Harry yelps, look scandalous._

_“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, it’s just – different,” Zayn explains, curling an arm around Niall’s shoulders. “It suits you, Nialler. It’s just a bit weird getting used to.”_

_“Tell me about it,” Niall snickers. “Scare myself in the mornings sometimes.”_

_“Scare me all the time,” Louis shouts, from where he’s dangling upside down from the monkey bars._

_“I think you look handsome, Niall,” Harry says, then. His eyes are bright and soft, and his smile is softer. Plus, his hair is starting to get just a bit longer, and he’s getting a bit taller, Niall’s pretty sure the dimples in his cheeks are bigger than they used to be. He’s really quite wonderful to look at._

_Niall finds that he needs to look away in order to hide the blush that rushes up his neck and splashes hot across his cheeks. He makes a run for the slide, climbs up to the top of the structure. And then they’re all there, less than a minute later, and they’re a mess of giggles and limbs._

_“Do you guys think we’ll always be friends?” Harry asks, once they’ve all settled. They’re lying on top of the structure, all five of them tangled together to the point where Niall’s not even sure where one lad ends and another begins._

_Everyone except Niall snorts and teases him. Niall sort of…finds himself gazing._

_“I’m serious,” Harry insists. “Like- Do you think we’ll be friends forever? In uni, and after uni, and…just- Always?”_

_“Yeah, mate,” Zayn murmurs, slipping his hand into Harry’s. Niall watches their fingers slot together._

_“We’ll always be friends.”_

++

After spending about an hour at the park, Niall takes Theo to get some lunch at a bakery a few blocks away. Theo gets a bagel with cream cheese and a small container of chocolate milk; Niall gets a club sandwich and a black coffee.

The bakery, just like with the house, is exactly the same as it was four years ago – apart from the staff. Harry no longer works behind the counter, and one of the old ladies that used to work alongside him, under Barbara’s supervision, retired a couple years ago. Other than that, though, nothing has changed.

“How come you don’t live here, Uncle Ni?” Theo asks suddenly, through a mouthful of bagel.

Niall blinks, taken aback. “Well, because I live somewhere else now.”

Theo tilts his head in confusion. “But why?”

“Because that’s where my job and my flat is.”

“Daddy says you no like it here no more… It’s true?”

“Not entirely,” Niall murmurs. “I just…needed to leave for a little while.”

“You come back?” Theo asks, looking hopeful.

Niall shrugs. “Maybe some day.”

“When?”

“I…I dunno, Theo. When I feel better, maybe.”

“You sick?” Theo wonders, eyebrows stitched together in confusion. It’s when his bottom lip quivers, that Niall begins to feel even worse than he already does.

“C’mere,” Niall whispers, waving for Theo to come closer before running a hand through his brown hair. And Theo does – climbing out of his own chair, before crawling up into Niall’s lap. Niall wraps Theo up in a hug, and presses a kiss to the boy’s temple. “I’m not sick,” he says. “I’ve just got a lot going on, and I can’t come back until I get it fixed.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, bud. But you’ll be the first person I tell, how about that? Deal?”

Theo smiles, sticks his hand out for a handshake. “Deal!” Instead of going back to his own chair, then, he simply reaches his arm out across the table and makes a grabby-hand at his plate – which prompts Niall, of course, to pull Theo’s plate over and set both plates side-by-side.

X

Bobby’s making dinner the next time Niall sees him; a proper stew, his mother’s recipe. Theo has just gone down for a nap, and Greg and Denise have left to do some errands before dinner is ready.

Niall steps up to the counter next to his father, and although he doesn’t say anything, a silent understanding that Niall is going to help passes between them as he reaches for the bag of carrots. He washes a few of the larger ones, and then starts to peel them each one by one, while Bobby cuts up a bag of potatoes.

“I ran into Liam today,” Bobby says suddenly. His voice is soft, maybe even a little bit hesitant; like he isn’t sure how Niall is going to respond.

And, to be fair, Niall isn’t really sure how to respond. “Yeah?”

“I run into the three of them sometimes, usually separately,” his da explains. “Around town, at the shop- Sometimes Liam and Louis will be at the pub having a pint though. And I just met Louis’ little lad the other day too; he’s really cute.”

Niall hums. Quite frankly, he’s not really sure that he trusts his own voice at the moment.

“They miss you.”

And, Jesus, Niall should have been more prepared for that.

"I know that what happened was devastating, Niall, but... You have to stop pushing people away,” Bobby murmurs. “You've gotta stop holding them at arm's length. They're your _friends_ , and they-"

"Can we just- Can we not do this right now, da?” Niall pleads. “I didn't come back to rehash old memories, I came back for mum’s funeral. Can I please do that without having to worry about other people?"

Bobby sighs. “Niall, I’m just saying-“

“I know what you’re saying!” Niall shouts, and then he curses upon remembering that Theo is asleep upstairs. Perhaps he should have laid down for a nap too. “I know exactly what you’re saying, dad. I just…can’t think about that right now, alright?

“Besides, they’ll probably come to the funeral, so I’ll see them then. Until then, just… Stop.”

“Alright,” Bobby sighs. “Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That I won’t lose you,” Bobby whispers. “I lost the happy, full-of-life kid you used to be that night, Niall. Don’t let me lose the rest of you too.”

++

_Niall knows that something is wrong the moment he walks into the living room to see both of his parents standing there. They look upset – although, admittedly, ‘upset’ isn’t quite strong enough. They look…heartbroken._

_“W-What?” he asks timidly, eyebrows stitched together in confusion. “What happened?”_

_Bobby clears his throat, gestures towards the sofa. “Niall, could you sit down, please?”_

_His da asking him to sit down, while looking the way he’s looking, makes sitting down the last thing he wants to do. “No, just tell me-“ He cuts himself off, as realization dawns on him. “Is it Zayn?”_

_Bobby looks at Maura, who hesitates._

_“Is it Zayn?” Niall demands, his voice louder than it was before._

_“Yes, it’s Zayn,” his mum says softly. She reaches for him, but he shrugs away from her touch. “He- He didn’t make it, baby.”_

_Niall blinks. “But- The doctor said he was doing well…”_

_“He was,” his dad starts to explain. “And he woke up today, and he spoke to Trisha for all of two minutes, and then – his brain started to bleed, and they couldn’t stop it in time.”_

_Niall feels sick. Feels like he’s going to pass out. Feels like the floor has fallen out below him. “But the coma was supposed to make him better,” Niall whispers. “He was supposed to be-“ he cuts himself off, then, because a lump in his throat that wasn’t there before, and it’s like he’s forgotten how to breathe._

_Maura reaches for her son again, but Niall moves away from her with a shake of his head. “Niall, baby, we’re so sorry-“_

_“I- Have to go,” the blond mutters as he whirls around. He makes a beeline towards the front door, grabs the key to his dad’s car off the hook next to the entrance. It’s like his body is moving all on its own, just simply going through the motions. He pulls the door open, then, and-_

_And standing in front of him, on the front step, is Harry._

_Harry, whose eyes are bloodshot red. Harry, whose cheeks are red and wet. Harry, whose skin is pale. Harry, who looks utterly distraught, and heartbroken, and devastated._

_Harry, who was exactly the person Niall was leaving to see._

_“Harry,” Niall whispers._

_“Niall-“ A sob rips its way out of Harry’s throat, and Niall’s arms are around him immediately. Holding him up, trying to hold him together – but to no avail, in the end._

_Harry is broken._

_Trisha is broken._

_Liam, and Louis are broken._

_Niall is broken._

_They’re all broken._

++

It’s late when Niall goes for a walk. It's a bit chilly out too. And he’s alone.

He hadn’t had a destination in mind when he left the house a little while ago, but he winds up at the viaduct, just a few blocks away from Niall’s neighbourhood. They used to hang out here, the five of them. They would drink (illegally), and Zayn would paint sometimes (also illegally), but mostly they’d just talk. About school, about work, about life, and girls, and boys, and their classmates, and people they liked, and people they hated, and their families… They’d talk about anything, and everything – and nothing was off limits. They were close, the five of them.

And then it was only four, and they weren’t close anymore, and Niall had felt an overwhelming urge to just…run away. So that’s exactly what he did.

And now here is.

"Niall."

He freezes, because he knows that voice. He's got that voice seared into his brain – every octave, every melody, every whisper, every gasp, every moan, every pleasurable cry- He turns around to face the lad; breathes in his dark chestnut curls, and his bright green eyes, and his broad shoulders and long legs and- Fucking hell, he’s still fucking beautiful.

"Harry."


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and his face falls. He’s upset; he’s got that look in his eyes. "What's so wrong with wanting to talk to you? What's wrong with that, Niall?"
> 
> "Everything!" Niall shouts.
> 
> "Why?"
> 
> "Because you should fucking _hate_ me!"
> 
> Harry blinks. "W-Why?" he stutters. He probably can’t even imagine why.
> 
> And Niall is momentarily thrown back several years, to when they were seven years old, and Harry didn’t understand why his dad wasn’t going to live with them anymore. And then he can’t help thinking about 17 year-old Harry, standing in the middle of a hallway, and not understanding why Zayn wouldn’t wake up after he came out of surgery.
> 
> "Because it's my fault he's dead,” Niall mutters, finally. He looks away, looks everywhere except at Harry. He’s thought about it, and he’s admitted it to himself over and over again – but saying it out loud is…entirely different. Admitting it to _Harry_ , is a whole other kind of pain.

_It’s going on two o’clock in the morning, which is well past Harry’s curfew, when Niall finally manages to get Harry up the stairs and into his room without running into Robin – or worse, Anne. Especially given how giggly, and loud, and drunk he is right now._

_"Your boyfriend should be doing this, not me," Niall murmurs, rolling his eyes, albeit fondly. Harry always has a habit of getting a little bit too drunk, but that’s not to say that it isn’t fairly entertaining._

_Harry pouts as he flops backwards onto his bed the minute Niall lets him go. "My boyfriend is away on a family vacation without me. You’re the only one I’ve got left."_

_Niall snorts. “That’s not entirely true. Payno and Tommo are still around somewhere.”_

_“Yeah, somewhere- But where?”_

_“That’s actually a really good question,” Niall hums. It’s not really all that uncommon for Louis and Liam to go off on their own, sometimes – but he’s barely seen either of them all summer. He reaches for Harry’s left foot, and yanks off his boot. Then he reaches for the other, and does the same._

_"H’come you've never dated anyone?"_

_Niall’s gaze snaps up, meets Harry’s – whose gaze is glued intently on Niall’s face. His brow furrows in confusion, as he places Harry’s shoes on the floor next to Harry’s bedside table. "What?"_

_"You've never dated anyone,” Harry murmurs, grabbing blindly at the bottom hem of his black Ramones t-shirt. He struggles to get it off over his head, gets one of his arms caught in the sleeves, and huffs until Niall helps him out. “I don't even think I've ever seen you kiss anyone,” he says a moment later, as he leans back. He starts to make work on his belt, and Niall has to look away._

_Niall shrugs, averts his gaze towards the bedroom window. "I'm not interested in anyone."_

_"'s a lie,” Harry slurs, struggling, now, to get his jeans off, whilst simultaneously watching Niall. “You're totally lying! You're totally interested in someone! Who is it?"_

_"Shut up, Harry,” Niall mutters, rolling his eyes._

_"C'mon, tell me,” Harry presses. He reaches for Niall’s arm. “Tell meeeeee."_

_"No."_

_"Why not?"_

_Niall sighs. "Because-"_

_"Please? C'mon. I tell you everything. Like, literally everything-"_

_"I'm aware,” Niall deadpans, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat. He knows far too much, and much more than he needs, or wants, to know about Harry’s and Zayn’s sex life._

_"Come one, Ni,” Harry murmurs softly. He pulls gently on Niall’s arm until the blond obliges, and sits on the bed next to him. “Tell me. Who's the lucky bird?"_

_"There is no lucky bird because he's a bloke, now will you drop it?"_

_Harry’s eyes widen curiously. "Who is he?"_

_"I'm not-"_

_"Is it Justin?"_

_"Harry-"_

_"Oh my God, no- It's Josh, isn't it?"_

_"No-"_

_"Ashton? Oh, what about Luke-"_

_Niall cuts him off by pressing their lips together. And, it’s not at all how Niall had imagined it – because Harry wasn’t drunk, to start – but it’s-_

_Harry’s lips are soft, and his mouth tastes like vodka, and Harry kisses back so tentatively, at first, and he leans in impossibly closer, and Niall’s hands are in Harry’s hair, and Harry’s got his fists clenched in the fabric of Niall’s shirt, and Jesus Christ-_

_Niall pulls away a moment later, eyes wide and cheeks flushed – and Harry’s panting, staring back at him with his own wide eyes. And then Niall leaves without another word, as quickly and quietly as he can, before Harry can stop him, should he even try._

++

"Please don't walk away,” Harry whispers. “Please, just- Talk to me."

Niall shakes his head, shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "I don't have anything to say-"

"Yes you do, you're just too afraid to say it."

"No, I just really don't-"

Harry stops him, hand wrapped around his elbow, before Niall can get around him to leave. "You've barely talked to me since you hopped on a plane and didn't look back,” he says. Niall can’t look up at him, but he can feel Harry’s gaze on his face. “And you haven't come back since then either, not even for holidays. And now that you're finally back, you still won't talk to me?"

Niall shrugs him off, twists his elbow out of Harry’s grip. "I didn't come back to talk to you, Harry."

Harry frowns, "I know. I know you didn't, and I'm so sorry, Niall. But please-"

"What exactly do you want me to say to you?” Niall snaps, whirling around to face him. “What are we supposed to talk about?"

"Anything," Harry breathes, looking hopeful.

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"Only because you've avoided me for four years."

Niall arches an eyebrow. "Can you blame me?"

Harry blinks, "I..."

"Exactly."

Niall turns around to leave, then. It’s late, it’s dark, he’s tired, and he just- He can’t deal with Harry right now, not on top of everything else. Not now.

"We both lost him, Niall."

Niall freezes, then, and a breath gets caught in his chest. His shoulders are tense, as is his jaw, and he doesn’t leave, but he doesn’t turn around either. "Yeah, and I'm the only one that seems to think it means something."

Harry’s standing in front of him in a matter of seconds. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Niall licks his lips, lifts his gaze, and looks Harry straight in the eye. "You shouldn't want to talk to me, Harry."

"Why not?"

He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. His throat closes, and his palms are sweating, and he just really, really, shouldn’t be here. "Forget it,” he mutters. “Never mind."

"Niall, I miss you," Harry whispers. He steps sideways, blocks Niall from trying to walk around him.

"Don't."

Harry pushes gently at Niall’s chest, to keep him from leaving. "I love you-"

"Stop it, Harry,” Niall hisses, slapping Harry’s hand away. “Just- Stop."

Harry’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and his face falls. He’s upset; he’s got that look in his eyes. "What's so wrong with wanting to talk to you? What's wrong with that, Niall?"

"Everything!" Niall shouts.

"Why?"

"Because you should fucking _hate_ me!"

Harry blinks. "W-Why?" he stutters. He probably can’t even imagine why.

And Niall is momentarily thrown back several years, to when they were seven years old, and Harry didn’t understand why his dad wasn’t going to live with them anymore. And then he can’t help thinking about 17 year-old Harry, standing in the middle of a hallway, and not understanding why Zayn wouldn’t wake up after he came out of surgery.

"Because it's my fault he's dead,” Niall mutters, finally. He looks away, looks everywhere except at Harry. He’s thought about it, and he’s admitted it to himself over and over again – but saying it out loud is…entirely different. Admitting it to _Harry_ , is a whole other kind of pain.

Harry shakes his head in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

"You want to know why I haven't been back in four years?” Niall asks rhetorically. He cocks his head, and folds his arms across his chest. “You want to know why I barely see my family, and barely speak to my friends? You want to know why I haven't _really_ talked to you since I left? Because I _can't_ , Harry. Because it's my fault that your boyfriend wrapped his car around a light that night. It's my fault Zayn is dead."

Harry blinks – and several things flash across his face; confusion, disbelief, anger, sadness, pain. And it’s the pain that hurts Niall the most. "I don't... I don't know what you're talking about."

"Because I never told you."

"Then tell me now."

Niall takes a deep, shaky breath. He’s taken it too far to back out now. He’s said too much, and he can’t take it back. “I saw him that night,” he whispers.

“W-What?”

“He came over to my house. I was drunk – because I was in fucking mood over _you_ , and he was drunk because… He knew about us, Harry.”

Harry shakes his head adamantly. “That’s impossible. We were always careful, he couldn’t have-“

“Well, obviously we weren’t careful enough,” Niall snaps. Does Harry think Niall’s joking? Or worse – lying? “Because he knew about us, and confronted me about it. And I couldn’t lie… I couldn’t look him in the eye, knowing he was hurt and devastated, and lie to him.”

“Oh God…” Harry mutters, running one hand over his face, and another through his hair.

“He pushed me,” Niall continues – remembers him shoving his way into the front hall, remembers the sound of the door slamming against the wall somewhere beside him. “And he pinned me against a wall, and he got right up in my face, and… I’d never known him to hate anyone, but he _hated_ me.

“And I don’t even remember everything. I just remember… I remember him being really angry, I remember that he kept saying really cruel things about _you_ , as well as about me, and I think I tried to defend you, but I don’t remember… I just know that he was drunk, and I was drunk, and I couldn’t figure out how to just talk to him, or how to calm him down-

“And the next thing I remember is you tapping at my window. I don’t remember him leaving, I don’t remember trying to stop him – or if I even did try, I don’t remember going upstairs to bed… There are so many blank spots in my memory of that night, but I know – I _know_ – that I should have stopped him. He was drunk, and I should have stopped him from getting back into his car-“

“Niall-“

“I should have done something, Harry,” Niall mutters, shaking his own head in disbelief. “And I didn’t.”

“Maybe you did,” Harry tries. He also takes a step forward, towards Niall, but Niall takes a step back. “Maybe you tried, and you just don’t remember-“

“It doesn’t matter if I tried, because even if I did try, I didn’t try hard enough. He still got into the car, he still drove away, and he still wrapped his stupid fucking car around a fucking light post.”

Harry frowns. “Niall…”

“So- That’s why, Harry. That’s why I jumped on a plane and never came back. That’s why I stopped answering your calls. That’s why I can barely even stomach the thought of looking at you – even now. _Especially now._ ”

“It’s not your fault, Niall,” the brunette insists.

“It is.”

“It’s not. He’s the one that got drunk, he’s the one that drove- It was him. It was _his_ decision.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “That’s easy for you to believe, if you weren’t there."

“It’s easy for me to believe, because I know you,” Harry says firmly, confidently. “I know you, and I know you would have at least tried to stop him, and-“

“Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter, Harry! It doesn’t – and why would it, when he’s _dead_? They might as well have thrown me in jail for it.

“And, even if I did try, I’m still to blame – because I’m the reason he was drunk. _I’m_ the reason he was drunk and behind the wheel in the first place-“

“If that’s what you really think, then I’m to blame too, remember? We both had the affair, so if you’re to blame, then so am I.”

Niall closes his eyes, purses his lips and shakes his head. “It’s not the same thing. It’s-“

“It _is_ ,” Harry argues. “He was angry because of something that both of us did, which means that we’re both to blame. If you’re going to blame yourself, then you need to blame me too.“

“No, Harry-“

“Then stop it!” Harry shouts. He crowds into Niall’s space, then, and his hands come up instinctively to hold his face. “Stop blaming yourself for something you couldn’t control. Stop blaming yourself for something that happened because of something we _both_ did.

“It was an _accident_ , Ni. Nothing that happened that night was supposed to, it was just- It was an accident.”

“It could have been prevented.”

“Maybe,” Harry breathes, pressing his forehead against Niall’s. “And maybe you tried, but it just didn’t work. And maybe the same thing would have happened if he had come to find me while I was out with mum instead.”

Niall pushes himself away, pulls himself out of Harry’s grasp, and takes more than just one step back. “Or maybe it would have been entirely different.”

“It was an accident,” Harry insists again. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah, well, it sure as hell felt like it that night,” Niall whispers, “and it felt like it a few weeks later when Trisha had to bury her only son – and it’s felt like it every single day since, so…”

“So you ran away.”

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You think the rest of us did?”

Niall blinks. “N-No, I just… Harry I couldn’t look you in the eye, I couldn’t even think about Trisha, I- It was the only thing I could think of to do that didn’t feel like it was going to destroy everything.”

“Yeah, well, leaving wasn’t any better,” Harry mutters. “Your leaving destroyed just about every relationship you ever had.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.”

Harry sighs, shakes his head and reaches out, once more, for Niall. “Ni-“

“Look, it’s late,” Niall mutters. “And I’m jetlagged. So I’m gonna go.”

“Wait, Niall-“

“What, Harry?”

The lad in question blinks, opens his mouth and closes it a couple times before he can actually make himself speak. And even then, it comes out as a stutter. “I just- Can I- Can we see each other sometime while you’re here? Like, go for coffee, or-“

“That’s not a good idea,” Niall murmurs. “You can come to the funeral, because I know you want to, but anything other than that it just… It’s not a good idea.”

He leaves quickly after that. Leaves before he can see the way Harry’s face falls because of Niall’s words.

He wishes he could. He wishes he could justify spending some time with Harry while he’s in town for the next week, it’s just… He can’t. It’s not possible, nor is it ideal.

X

The house is quiet when Niall get back, and all the lights are off, it seems, except for one in the living room. He takes off his jacket, kicks off his shoes, and deposits the keys to Bobby’s car in the small glass bowl on the shelf in the entryway before he drags his feet towards the back of the house.

He finds Bobby in the living room, sitting on the sofa with his back perched against the arm and his legs spread out across the cushions in front of him. There’s a half empty glass of what looks like, and probably is, knowing his father, Guinness sitting on a coaster on the coffee table, and a photo album Niall hasn’t paid attention to since he was a child splayed open across Bobby’s lap.

“There you are, lad,” Bobby greets him, with a small smile. “Thought you might have gotten lost, believe it or not.”

Niall shakes his head. “Just… Got distracted,” he says.

“Go grab a beer, and join me.”

And, well, it’s not that Niall doesn’t want to spend quality time his dad, it’s just- The last thing he wants to do is go down memory lane. It’s the whole entire reason he’s avoided coming back home – because being in England is more than enough of a memory booster. He wants to say no. He wants to go upstairs, crawl into bed, and sleep until the day of the funeral – if he can’t just pretend that it isn’t happening altogether.

Instead, he finds himself sitting on the sofa next to his father a moment later, Stella beer bottle in hand. He owes Bobby this much. (Realistically, he owes Bobby a whole hell of a lot more than just this, but it’s a start, he reckons.)

Bobby chuckles softly, points to a picture of Niall and Greg on a play structure; underneath it, written in his mother’s neat and curly handwriting, is: ‘Niall, age 4; Greg, age 11’. “That’s the day you learned how to use the monkey bars. Greg was adamant to teach you.

“You didn’t get along, a lot of the time – I reckon because of the age gap – but he always jumped at the chance to teach you something. He liked supporting you, he did.”

Niall smiles softly. He and Greg had never been close. They were, more or less, from two different generations, they were two totally different people, and they were rarely ever on the same page even when they were. His gaze lands, then, on a picture on the other page. He finds himself reaching out to it, brushing the tips of his fingers across the face of the photograph.

It’s of him and his mum on his fifth birthday.

“That was only a few months before we decided to get a divorce,” Bobby murmurs.

“Dad-“

“We tried so hard for you boys, to make it work. It just…didn’t.”

“We knew that,” Niall whispers.

“And then a few years later you and I relocated out here, and that was really hard for her, being away from you for so long all the time.”

“I know.”

Bobby’s lips twitch into a small smile. “I remember your face when we told you we were getting back together,” he laughs softly. “You were, what- Sixteen?”

“Fifteen. And I thought you were mental,” Niall remembers.

“So did we, but… The heart wants what it wants, you know?” Bobby murmurs, and Niall’s throat runs dry. “No matter how crazy it might seem.”

Niall hums, because it’s all he can manage. He watches Bobby turn the pages, watches himself and Greg, and himself and Harry, grow up through snapshots of his life. Back when things were simple. Back when everything was easy, and laid back. And then Bobby stops on one page, and Niall’s gaze lands on one photo in particular. It’s a photo of the five of them – Liam, Louis, Zayn, Harry, and himself. They’re all piled on the trampoline that Harry had gotten for his 13th birthday, dressed in thick jumpers, wearing beanies, their bottom halves tucked into five separate sleeping bags. Zayn’s caught in the middle of a very rambunctious Louis and a defensive Liam, and Harry has himself draped over top of Niall a safe enough distance away.

“She loved them,” Bobby whispers, before taking a long sip of his beer. His eyes are shining. “Harry, he was her favourite though. She _loved_ Harry. And she was pretty certain, for a long while, that the two of you would have ended up together.”

Niall sucks on a breath, and gulps back the last few sips of his own beer. “Why’s that?”

His father shrugs. “You adored him, he adored you – and she just thought… Well, she just wondered, is all.”

“You should get some sleep, dad,” Niall murmurs.

“Yeah,” Bobby. “You too. It’s gonna be a long week.” He groans as he pushes himself to his feet, something he always blames on ‘old age’.

And Niall thinks that ‘ _long week_ ’ might actually be an understatement, if the last couple of hours are anything to go by.

++

_Niall’s in bed, sheet pulled up and tucked under his arms as he stares at the ceiling above him. He’s been having a hard time sleeping the last couple of nights, because his mind hasn’t stopped racing since the last time he saw Harry, and thinking about Harry makes him feel a little bit sick these days. So much so, that he hasn’t been eating enough lately either._

_It has to stop. Whatever he’s thinking, however he’s feeling- It needs to stop. He needs to put an end to it once and for all-_

_His thoughts are broken up by the sound of his bedroom window sliding open – and there’s only one person in the whole world that is reckless and stupid enough to climb the trellis against the side of his house and crawl through his window, instead of telling Niall that he’s outside and asking if he can be let in. He sits up, lets the sheet fall down to pool around his hips, and watches as the bloke manages to get all his long limbs inside without incident._

_“I’m finally getting good at that,” Harry says, voice soft , probably so he doesn’t wake Niall’s parents._

_“That only makes a total of one time you’ve managed to crawl through without wreaking havoc and knocking something over, Haz,” Niall says. “You’d still make a terrible thief.”_

_“Practice makes perfect, Niall.”_

_The blond hums as he scoots himself to the edge of his bed, leaves his legs to dangle over the side of the mattress as he watches Harry close the window behind himself. “What are you doing here?”_

_Harry turns around to face him with a shrug, and a small smile. “I just…wanted to see you, I guess. I haven’t heard from you since, you know- And I want to talk about it-“_

_“We shouldn’t talk about it,” Niall protests. “We should just forget that it happened.”_

_“I don’t know if I can do that,” the brunette whispers, coming closer. He sits on the edge of the bed next to Niall, hands clasped in his lap._

_“You have to. We both do.”_

_“I can’t stop thinking about it, Ni,” Harry breathes. “I can’t stop thinking about you, or about_ us… _I just-“_

_“What about Zayn?” Niall asks. “He’s coming back next week-“_

_“I know-“_

_“Then we need to forget about it,” Niall whispers, pushing himself to his feet. He lingers in front of Harry, runs a hand through his hair. “It- I mean, it doesn’t have to mean anything. We can just pretend it never happened, yeah? Nobody has to know.”_

_Harry looks up at Niall, runs a hand through his own curly fringe. “Except that it_ did _mean something. We both know it meant everything to you, and I’m starting to realize that it means something to me too.”_

_“It can’t, Harry. Whatever I feel for you, it doesn’t matter. And whatever you think you feel, it’s not real-“_

_“What if it is?” Harry asks softly. He looks a bit helpless, a bit scared as he pushes himself to his feet as well. “What if it is real?”_

_Niall shakes his head. “It’s not. And even if it is, it doesn’t matter-“_

_“How can you say that after what happened?”_

_“Because you have a boyfriend, Harry,” Niall hisses. “You have a boyfriend, and he happens to be one of my best friends, and it’s not allowed to matter.”_

_Harry closes the gap between them. He’s cups Niall’s face gently, and rests his forehead against Niall’s softly. His gaze flickers between Niall’s eyes, like he’s looking for something. “But it matters, Niall.”_

_Niall sighs. “Harry-“_

_His protest is cut short by Harry’s own – in the form of a kiss that takes Niall’s breath away. Harry’s lips are soft and beautiful, little works of art all on their own, but unlike their last kiss, where it started out tentative and sweet, this one is hard, and solid, and full of purpose and desire – and it’s like everything else falls away from them. Kissing Harry is the single most beautiful thing Niall has ever experienced._

_They’re moving, then, and the backs of Niall’s knees hit the edge of the bed before he falls back on it. He relishes the feeling of having Harry crawl over him, between his thighs and all around him._

_“What the fuck are we doing, Harry?” Niall asks rather absentmindedly, panting against Harry’s mouth._

_“I don’t know…” Harry whispers._

_And Niall wants to protest – but then Harry slips his hand down the front of Niall’s pants and Niall can’t think about anything except for_ HarryHarryHarry.

++

A surprise awaits Niall the following morning, upon dragging his feet into the kitchen, in the form of an ‘all grown up’ version of both Liam and Louis. Niall freezes, mid-step in the doorway, as he stares at them.

He’s spoken to them off-and-on for the last few years, but he hasn’t seen them since he left town.

They both look good. Liam, who’s much taller now – almost as tall as Harry, who is about the size of telephone pole, honestly , with a thick beard and broad shoulders. And Louis, while still a bit short, actually _looks_ like a dad now.

“There he is!” Louis greets loudly. “Was wondering when you’d get your arse out of bed.”

“Late night,” Niall murmurs, walks into the room. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Hello to you too, mate,” Liam laughs, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Your dad let us in,” Louis responds, getting in on the hug. “He stepped out for a bit, by the way.”

Niall takes a breath when they pull away, smiles, and then busies himself with preparing a cup of tea.

“So, I know we’ve both already said it, but we’re really sorry about your mum, Nialler,” Liam says softly.

“Thanks,” Niall murmurs, turns around to face the two of them. He leans back against the counter, mug in hand. “She was sick for a while though, so I’d have been an idiot if I hadn’t seen it coming anyway. I just wish I’d managed to get the time off to come home sooner, to see her again.”

“I’m sure she understood,” Louis tells him sympathetically.

Niall shrugs, and then pulls a chair out at the table across from them and sits down. “It is what it is, right?” That’s how Niall’s forcing himself to look at it, anyway. It’s a lot easier than acknowledging that he might have let his fear of coming back here get in the way.

“How’s work going anyway?” Liam asks, changing the subject quickly – which Niall is thankful for.

“It’s really good, actually,” Niall replies. “I’m basically an assistant manager at the club. I oversee things from the putting range, to the course, to the caddies, to managing all the equipment and keeping track of all the parts.”

“Seems your knowledge of engines came in handy after all,” Louis comments.

“I’m pretty sure that’s why they hired me. Whoever was doing it before was doing a terrible job.”

Louis whistles, grin spread across his face. “Look at you. You’ll be opening up your own club in no time.”

Niall snorts, rolls his eyes. “Dunno about that. I’m still fresh out of school-“

“Don’t put yourself down, Niall.”

“What about you guys?” Niall asks, after taking a sip of his tea. “How’s work? How’s the love life? How’s the baby, Tommo – and why didn’t you bring him?”

“Wait a minute- How’s _your_ love life?” Liam asks instead.

Niall rolls his eyes. “Non-existent. Enough questions about me, your turn.”

Liam shrugs as he leans forward, folds his arms across the table. “Work is pretty good. Fires are fires. Saved a woman from a burning house last week, and a cat from a tree the day after.”

“You really are a superhero, then,” Niall hums. “Knew you would be, no question. What about you, Lou?”

“I’m saving small children from themselves, as a matter of fact,” Louis says. “The life of a professor; molding today’s youth, whilst simultaneously trying to prevent them from eating too many crayons.”

“ _’Too many,’_ ” Liam snickers.

“Some of them are really sneaky.”

“What about _your_ little youth?”

“Freddie is a prince,” Louis gushes. The love and pride he feels for his son is palpable. “There will be no eating crayons in his future, I’ll tell you that.”

Both Niall and Liam laugh.

“Honestly, though,” Louis starts, his voice having gone softer. “He’s pretty fucking perfect. Briana has him this week, which worked out well in terms of the funeral and whatnot, but you can finally meet him next week.”

“I look forward to it.”

The rest of the morning flies by, what with the three of them just sort of falling into place. It almost feels like old times, apart from the fact that they avoid talking about Zayn altogether.

_Almost._

X

He goes for a drive in the afternoon. He takes the backroads, revels in the emptiness of the world around him – apart from field and forest and wilderness. It’s quiet, and it’s soothing, and he misses it. It’s been far too long since he’s been home; he’s been far too far away.

L.A. doesn’t have this. It’s got its own version, sure – but it’s not like this. L.A. has a lot of things that Holmes Chapel doesn’t have, a lot of nice things and important things and expensive things – celebrities, mansions, a Hollywood sign, beaches, sunshine 90% of the year – but L.A. doesn’t feel like home, not even after living there for nearly four years.

He’s missed this. He’s missed it a lot, way more than he’ll ever admit to anyone who asks.

On the way back home, hours after he’d left, he sees a woman and he car on the side of the road. The hood of the car is propped open, and she looks incredibly frustrated – and it’s as he gets closer, pulls up to a stop behind her, that he recognizes the woman.

“Taylor,” he calls out to her as he climbs out of his own car. “Everything okay?” It’s a stupid question, he knows.

“My battery is dead, I think. I tried calling my dad, but-“

“Mind if I have a look?”

Taylor smiles, looking relieved. “Please?”

Niall gets in around her to have a look and, yeah- Everything else seems fine, so she must be right. “I’ll give you a boost, give me a minute.” He walks back around her, towards his own car. He pulls out in front of hers, gets out to pop the hood, and then pops the trunk to get a set of booster cables.

“You were always pretty good with cars, I heard,” Taylor says, watching him as he hooks one end of the cable to his car’s battery.

Niall shrugs as he moves towards her car to do the same. “I was alright.”

“You’re being modest. Harry always says that about you.”

Niall’s brow furrows. “You still talk to Harry?”

Taylor giggles. “I mean- I should hope so, since he’s my fiancé.”

His stomach plummets, and he’s pretty sure his heart stops beating for a moment. Fiancé? Fiancé… Harry never mentioned anything about having a fiancé. “Oh,” he mutters. And then, to get rid of the sound of her voice repeating a mantra of the word in his head, he gets in behind the wheel of his car to rev the engine. It’s not compulsory, but if it speeds up the charge he’ll do anything.

He sends her on her way a little while later, after she thanks him and hugs him, and says something about being late to meet Harry – and Niall kind of hates her.

++

_“So, I’ve been thinking of asking Harry out…”_

_Niall hums distractedly. “Ask him out where?”_

_“Like,_ out _out,” Zayn emphasizes. “Like- On a date.”_

_Niall blinks, nearly drops his pen out of shock. What? What is he talking about?_

_“I really like him, Niall,” the raven-haired boy admits, and he drops down to sit next to Niall. They’ve been at the Twemlow viaduct for a couple of hours now; Zayn’s been painting a large canvas he didn’t have room to paint at home, and Niall’s been writing an essay on Hamlet. It’s been relatively quiet between the two of them – until now, it seems. “He’s, like- Beautiful, you know? And he’s smart, and he’s funny, and he’s kind, and- I just really like him.”_

_Niall doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to respond when his stomach is in bits and his chest hurts._

_“I’ve wanted to ask for a while, but I’ve been too afraid.”_

_“Of what?” Niall manages to ask, breathing around the lump in his throat._

_“Of him rejecting me…”_

_Niall feels sick._

_Zayn turns to look at him him, then, looking hopeful. “You know him better than anyone, right? Does he like me? What do you think he’d say?”_

_Niall blinks, fights back to urge to beg him not to. “I mean, we’ve never talked about you like that.”_

_Zayn frowns._

_“But, I dunno- It’s worth a shot, I guess, right? Even if he says no, it won’t be weird for long. Harry’s not like that.”_

_“You think he’ll say no?”_

_“No, I-“ he cuts himself off; thinks he should be more supportive than this. Thinks he shouldn’t be so selfish. Thinks that he’s definitely lost his chance now anyway, even if Harry did turn Zayn down; there’s no way he could be with Harry after that… “Ask him. I think you should ask him. He’s worth a shot, Zayn.”_


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is staring at him. His gaze lands on Bobby first; Bobby, a man who has never cried in front of Niall, sobbing into a handkerchief. He scans over Greg, who’s only just barely holding back tears as he holds on tight to Denise’s hand; over Denise, who’s dabbing at the corners of her wet eyes with a white tissue; over Theo, who’s too young to understand the magnitude of what’s happening around him, but recognizes that it’s not playtime. And then his gaze lands on Liam and Louis, dressed in black suits, looking as somber as they did the last time they did this. Finally, his gaze lands on Harry, whose eyes are a bit red and puffy and wet, whose hands are clasped tight together in his lap, who nods at Niall as if to tell him that he’s _there_.

_His suit is black. So are his shoes and his tie. Even his boxer briefs are black. Apart from the crisp, white shirt beneath his jacket, everything is black._

_He’s alone._

_He’s standing alone in front of three caskets. One holds Zayn, who’s dressed in black suit to match his jet black hair, and someone did an impeccable job hiding the ugly scar on his forehead with makeup. The second casket holds Maura, in her favourite red dress, looking like she’s on her way to a ball instead of her funeral own funeral. The third casket is empty, pushed only slightly off to the side._

_He’s a mess, but he hides it well under his stoic exterior._

_A hand slips into his, one that’s soft and familiar, and suddenly he’s no longer alone._

_Harry looks 17 again. He looks tired, with bags under his eyes and dry lips, like he hasn’t slept in weeks. His cheeks are a bit hollow, because he hasn’t eaten very much either, and his bottom lip is raw from having chewed it apart. He’s a mess too, only he looks it._

_Harry squeezes Niall’s hand. “It wasn’t your fault,” he whispers. “It was never your fault.”_

_Niall doesn’t have the strength to argue._

_Two men walk into the room, then. They nod their acknowledgments, and silent condolences, before they wheel both caskets out of the room._

_Niall wants to follow, isn’t ready to say goodbye – so he starts after them, but then Harry doesn’t move. Instead, he remains still as ever. A gasp rips out of him as he turns around, and he feels sicker than before._

_There’s a gash on Harry’s forehead. It’s bleeding, and so is Harry’s nose._

_“Harry,” Niall whimpers. “No. No- Haz-“_

_“It’s not your fault, Ni. It’s not your fault.”_

_And then Harry falls, his lifeless body hits the floor with a thunk because Niall is too scared to catch him._

_It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault._

_Niall screams._

**

He wakes with a start, as he always does. He sits up, runs both hands through his hair and then rubs at his tired eyes.

He gets it – why he always dreams of Harry dying too. It doesn’t take a genius, or even a psychologist, to know that it’s some weird psychological guilty conscience thing. Which makes sense given the fact that there is quite a bit of guilt on his conscience. He just wishes that the nightmares would stop, or that, at the very least, they wouldn’t be about Harry dying. He’d rather his guilty conscience punish him with Zayn dying over, and over, and over – because at least that’s what happened. At least that way he wouldn’t have to convince himself, every morning, that Harry is still alive.

A glance at the clock tells him it’s almost seven o’clock, so there’s no point in going back to sleep now even he would be able to. He’s got a long day ahead of him – the whole family does – and an early start just means that he has more time to prepare for his second funeral in four years.

X

He’s working on doing up his tie when Bobby walks into the room. He’s not bad at putting on ties, in fact he’s actually fairly good, it’s just that his hands are shaking and he can’t concentrate and-

“Here, turn around,” Bobby murmurs, coming up behind him. He taps Niall on the shoulder, and Niall turns around to let Bobby take care of it. “The hearse will be here soon. Greg and I will take care of all that, though.”

“Okay,” Niall nods. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

Bobby shakes his head. “The funeral home has everything else covered. We’ll all get into the car and follow the hearse, and then the three of us, along with your uncle and cousins are going to carry the coffin into the home. We’ll welcome everyone, wait until everyone has arrived and then the funeral with begin. After the funeral only family members will be able to see…her…one last time, and then the home will take care of the cremation. We’ll get the ashes in a few days.”

“Are you okay?” Niall asks softly.

“No,” Bobby breathes. “But today isn’t about me, is it? It’s about your mum.”

Niall sighs. “Da-“

“Lets just get through today together, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall murmurs. “Together.”

“Greg and Denise will be here soon. I’m gonna go start the kettle.”

“Dad?” Niall calls out, as Bobby heads back towards the door. “I love you.”

“I love you too, lad.”

Niall watches Bobby go, lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding as the door closes behind him. He feels sorry for his dad; sorry that Bobby and Maura never really got to have their second chance after getting back together when Niall was 15. Seven years doesn’t seem long enough, doesn’t feel…complete.

X

Harry is one of the first people to arrive at the funeral home, along with his mum and step-dad; Anne tells him that Gemma would have come as well if she weren’t out of town for work. Robin shakes Niall’s hand and offers his condolences, before moving on to talk to his father. Anne gives him a hug and a peck on the temple. Harry hugs him as well, before offering to occupy a rather fussy Theo; both Greg and Denise are incredibly thankful, and Theo is more than happy to follow Harry around.  
Liam and Louis arrive shortly after that.

The priest begins the proceedings with a passage from the bible. He talks about life and death, about family and friends, and love and compassion, and the past and the present and the future.

Niall’s uncle, Maura’s brother Mark, is the first member of the family to speak. He talks about their childhood, talks about growing up and being protective of his little sister, talks about how it felt watching her grow into a smart, mature and beautiful young woman. He talks about watching her become a wife, and then a mother, says that she was never the same after she and Bobby divorced and that she blamed herself entirely, says that it was like she’d found herself when she and Bobby got back together years later. He talks about how devastated the whole family had been when she got sick, and says it isn’t fair that she, the youngest of their siblings, is the first one to pass away. He says that life moves on, though, and that Maura wouldn’t want anyone to dwell.

“I met Maura in secondary school,” Bobby says next. His eyes, ears, and nose are red, and his hands are shaking as he sets the piece of paper – on which he’d written his talking points – on the podium in front of him. “My first thought was that she was beautiful. And then I got to know her a bit, and it took me about three weeks to finally ask her out on a date, I was that nervous. I remember going home after, looking me da in the eye and saying, ‘I’m gonna marry her.’

“Six months later, we got pregnant. Five months after that, we got married. And then we graduated, and we had Greg. We were young, and we were inexperienced, but we were in love and we were happy, and that was all that mattered. Seven years later we had Niall, and everything was perfect. Until it wasn’t.

“We tried for a long time, and we pretended that everything was okay even though it wasn’t. We convinced ourselves it was just a rut, that we’d work through it – but it only got worse. So we separated, and then we divorced, and I moved here for work with Niall, and… I think, for a long time, we did the co-parenting thing better than we did the marriage thing, somehow.

“Anyway, we both tried to move on, we did. She dated a few men, I dated a few women; we really tried… And then I took the boys back to Ireland for Christmas one year, and- I suppose you could say that sparks flew and it was like we were teenagers again, only this time it was different. We hid it from the kids for about a year, broke the news to them the following Christmas. It was our second shot, and… It was one hell of a shot,” he breathes. His voice is shaky, and his eyes are wet with tears as he takes a deep breath before he continues.

“She moved here, she got a job, and… We were all a family again. It felt right – she and I felt right. It felt like this was; felt like it was going to work this time. And it did; even through tragedy, it worked. And then she got sick, and it looked like she was getting better for a while, because she was a fighter, and yet… And yet here we are."

Silence covers the entire room; all that can be heard is tearful sniffles, and the odd breath or gasp.

“It hurts, of course it does. It hurts like hell, to watch someone suffer and then to watch them die. But there’s this weird comfort in knowing that she’s okay now, you know? It’s sort of like… It’s like how sometimes I get really angry that we wasted so many years apart, because we missed so much, but then it makes me that much more thankful for the time I did have with her. If everybody here only takes one thing away from this speech, then take that… Because Mark is right; she never would have wanted anyone to dwell – whether it be on death, or wasted time. Just…cherish the time you did have with her, that’s all.”

The room is silent as Bobby returns to his spot, in between Greg and Niall, before Greg gets up to stand behind the podium. His speech isn’t as long, and Niall ends up zoning out for most of it, intent instead on the way his stomach lurches at the thought of having to speak after him. It scares him a little bit, quite frankly. The idea of getting up in front of dozens of people, most of which he hasn’t even spoken to in ages, is incredibly daunting. The idea of talking about his mother – about her death – is downright terrifying.

He hadn’t been able to speak for Zayn. He needs to speak for Maura.

It’s not until Greg takes his seat next to Bobby after he’s finished, that Niall remembers he needs to stand. Placing one foot in front of the other – _left, right, left_ \- is something he hasn’t had to think this hard about in nearly four years, and the trek up to the podium, even though it’s only a few feet away, feels like it takes ages to accomplish.

Everyone is staring at him. His gaze lands on Bobby first; Bobby, a man who has never cried in front of Niall, sobbing into a handkerchief. He scans over Greg, who’s only just barely holding back tears as he holds on tight to Denise’s hand; over Denise, who’s dabbing at the corners of her wet eyes with a white tissue; over Theo, who’s too young to understand the magnitude of what’s happening around him, but recognizes that it’s not playtime. And then his gaze lands on Liam and Louis, dressed in black suits, looking as somber as they did the last time they did this. Finally, his gaze lands on Harry, whose eyes are a bit red and puffy and wet, whose hands are clasped tight together in his lap, who nods at Niall as if to tell him that he’s _there_.

“Um, hi,” he finds himself saying, then. His voice is but a croak, and he has to clear his throat before he continues. “This is… This is really hard. It doesn’t quite feel right, does it?” There’s a collective, silent agreement throughout the room. “Doesn’t really feel real either. Sort of feels like she’s gonna come waltzing in through those doors, wondering what the bloody hell everyone is so upset out it. And even then, she wouldn’t get it, would she? She’d think we were all mad, mourning over her… She never really understood her importance in other people’s lives.

“In my case, I think it’s because I never really told her,” he admits softly. “I mean, I told her I love her, of course, but I don’t think I ever really told her how important she was to me. We weren’t always close – especially during the years we didn’t live together, but she was important.

“When her and Bobby first sat me and Greg down to tell us they were getting back together, I was- Well, first of all I was 15- But I was also just…kind of really furious,” he remembers. “I just remember wondering why the hell they would even think about trying again when it so obviously didn’t work out the first time. I remember thinking it was a stupid idea, that nothing good could come from it, and that they were both absolutely mad. As it turns out, I was only right about one of those things considering how absolutely mad they were for each other.

“It was really nice having the family back together. And it was great to see them both finally be truly happy. Everything felt right – more than it ever had with them before. It was refreshing; like a breath of fresh air.

“And then she got sick, and it changed nearly everything, but one thing remained the same – and that was their love for each other. She got weaker, and weaker, but her love for Bobby never wavered, and nor did his for her. They were a force to be reckoned with, those two. She was a force to be reckoned with, even when she was sick. I wasn’t around a lot, being away at school and whatnot, but she called me every weekend, all the time, no matter where she was or how sick she was.

“She had accepted her fate long before any of the rest of had, yet… She wasn’t bitter about it. She wasn’t even really all that afraid of it. She didn’t dwell on it, which is why she wouldn’t want any of us to dwell on it either.”

The priest gets in behind the podium after Niall has found his seat a moment later to finish off the ceremony, and Niall lets himself zone out for no other reason than it’s the only way to prevent himself from breaking down on the spot.

X

Niall finds himself alone with Maura’s casket, after everyone else has left, including Greg and Bobby. His father had choked up after saying his last goodbye, and Greg had escorted him out of the room to join the rest of the guests outside, but Niall can’t bring himself to leave. Not now. Not yet.

He runs his hand over the edge of the casket, feels the glide of the polished wood beneath his calloused fingers. It smells like her, somehow – like they sprayed her with her favourite perfume. Which seems a bit morbid, but also a bit…perfect. And for just a moment, when he closes his eyes, it’s like he’s four years old again, climbing up into his mother’s lap for a cuddle.

A hand slips into his, and it’s the only reason he remembers he’s not four years old. He doesn’t have to look to know who it is – because his touch is as familiar as it’s ever been, even more than four years later, but he looks anyways. And he knows they shouldn’t. He knows that he should drop Harry’s hand, should pull away, should walk away-

But he can’t. Because Harry’s hand is like an anchor; it’s the only thing keeping him afloat at the moment.

So he squeezes Harry’s hand instead. (And he’ll deal with the consequences later.)

X

As proceedings go from mourning a death, to celebrating a life, Irish tradition finds nearly everyone who had attended the funeral at an Irish pub a few blocks away from the funeral home.

It’s loud, and it’s busy, and everyone is having a good time – including Bobby, who’s standing at the bar counter with a circle of his closest friends and family, reminiscing about his life with Maura. He’s making people smile, he’s making people laugh, and he’s making people remember. Denise and Theo have since left, because it’s well past the toddler’s bedtime, but Greg is still here too, laughing amongst his own friends in their own corner of the pub.

And Niall wants to be a part of it, he does. He wants to get in there, wants to share stories, wants to smile and laugh and remember. But he also wants to just be alone, so-

That’s how he finds himself sneaking through the kitchen, thanks to the manager’s permission, with a purchased bottle of Irish whiskey, and out the back door. It’s a bit chilly out, but it’s quiet; the sounds of everything going on inside muffled through the walls. He sits on a bench, one the employees probably use for smoke breaks, and knocks back a few gulps from the bottle. It burns going down, but it’s a good burn – one Niall revels in as it spreads warmth throughout his chest. Maybe instead of remembering, this will make him forget everything.

The back door opens not a moment later, and Niall expects it to be the bloke that had been behind the bar when he’d slipped into the kitchen, thinks maybe he’s taking his break. What he doesn’t expect is for Harry to come through the door.

“Hey,” Harry says softly, pushing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as he lets the door close behind him.

“I came out here to be alone,” Niall mutters.

“I’m not entirely sure you should be alone right now, Niall.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Well that’s not for you to decide, now, is it?”

Silence falls over them, as Harry refuses to budge. Niall thinks it best to just ignore him instead of getting angry, then, so he does so by taking a sip from the bottle in his hand.

“I like your hair darker,” Harry says softly, a moment later. “It brings out your eyes a bit more. Suits you.”

Niall hums.

“What made you decide to stop dyeing it?”

“Bleach is expensive, first off,” Niall mutters. “And I couldn’t keep looking at myself in the mirror looking like...that.” He’d tried keeping it blond, he had. It’s just that everytime he looked at himself, he saw the bloke who fucked his best friend’s boyfriend, and then got him killed. Everytime he saw himself, it was like looking at a memory of someone he used to be - someone he no longer wanted to be. The blond hair he’d had for ages had become nothing more than a ghost, haunting him the way he sometimes wished Zayn would.

“Niall-”

“Go back inside, Harry. Or, better yet, go home to your fiancé.”

The brunette blinks, looks caught off guard. “What? How do you-“

“I ran into her yesterday, helped her with her car.”

“She didn’t tell me that,” Harry murmurs, seemingly more to himself than to Niall.

“Looks like you’re not the only one keeping secrets, then.”

Harry takes a step forward, but Niall pushes himself to his feet and takes two steps away from him. He blinks. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“A simple ‘by the way, I’m engaged now’ would have sufficed,” Niall snaps.

“I couldn’t tell you just like that-“

“Would have been better than letting me find out by accident.”

Harry sighs again. “It’s not exactly like I had very many opportunities. You wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Good thing, that,” Niall mutters.

“Why do you care, then?” Harry demands, brows furrowed in frustration. “If you’re so fucking mad at me, for whatever fucking reason – why do you care who I’m with? Or what I’m doing with them at all?”

Niall has clench his jaw to keep the words from spilling through his lips.

“You haven’t talked to me in months, so why does it matter-“

“It doesn’t.”

Harry bites his lip, shakes his head. “I don’t believe you.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to, but it’s true. It doesn’t matter, and I don’t care.” He grabs the bottle of whiskey off the bench by the neck. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d rather be inside with everyone else, than alone with you, so-“

Harry’s hand wraps around his elbow, and then suddenly he’s being pushed back and Harry won’t let him pass.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Niall sighs.

“What am _I_ doing? What are _you_ doing?” Harry asks, flipping the table. He looks hurt, but he also looks angry. “All I wanted was to keep you company out here. I wanted to make sure you were okay, and I wanted… I didn’t want you to be alone, and you’re acting like such a twat.”

“ _I_ want to be alone, Harry. I just said goodbye to my mother for the last time, my being a twat right now is the least of my worries.”

“It’s not just ‘right now’, though, is it,” Harry mutters. “You started pushing me away four years ago, and-“

“And now you know why,” Niall reminds him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Harry says softly. He takes a step forward, and Niall doesn’t have the energy to take a step back. “I never would have blamed you.”

Niall shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. _I_ blamed me, and I couldn’t look at you because of it.” He wonders if, perhaps, he should tell Harry about his nightmares too – but then promptly decides against it.

“I just wanted to be there,” Harry whispers. “I just wanted us to be there for each other. For longer than just five minutes during his funeral.”

“I know you did.”

“And I just want to be here for you _now_ , Niall. That’s all I want.”

“I know,” the blond murmurs again, fingers clenched tight around the neck of the bottle.

Harry’s hand finds the side of Niall’s neck, and he strokes his thumb over the light stubble across Niall’s chin. “Why won’t you let me be there for you?” he asks softly. “Why won’t you let me in?”

Niall wants to pull away, wants to put as much distance between them as possible – which is becoming harder and harder now that he’s no longer an entire ocean and a continent away, but he can’t find it in himself to muster up the strength to move. Harry’s familiar, is the thing. So instead he just licks his lips. “Because the last time I let you in, against my better judgment, we fell into bed together.”

“Niall-“

“You _what_?!”

Niall gaze snaps away from Harry’s face, and focuses behind Harry’s head, whilst Harry lets his hand fall as he whirls around to face the directions of the source of the voice. Standing behind Harry, the door creaking closed behind them, are both Louis and Liam; Louis, who looks livid, and Liam, who looks confused, with his hands pushed into the front pockets of his trousers. Niall’s stomach plummets.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Liam and Louis were never supposed to find out – and they certainly weren’t supposed to find out like this.

“Did you just say that you fell into bed together?” Louis demands, his voice loud and incredulous. “When?”

“Lou,” Harry murmurs. “We can explain.-“

“And you’re fucking gonna!” Louis hisses. “When the hell have the two of you have time to fuck? Unless it was sometime before the last four years, during which Niall avoided this place like the plague-“ He pauses, realization dawning on him and resting on his face. “Hang on. It was before, wasn’t it? Is that why you haven’t stepped foot on British soil, Niall? Because you felt guilty about shagging your dead best friend’s boyfriend?”

Niall blinks. “Of course not-“

“Then what the fuck are you talking about?”

“It was before his death, wasn’t it?” Liam asks, interjecting before either Niall or Harry can respond. “Near the end of the year? You guys stopped…being yourselves, and Zayn was convinced that something had happened but he couldn’t figure out what it had been; he’d just thought you’d had some sort of falling out. But that’s what it was, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly,” Harry mutters. “We-“

“We’d in been having an affair,” Niall says. His voice doesn’t sound quite right, not even to his own ears, and he thinks it’s because of the lump in his throat.

“An _affair_?” Louis questions, disgust laced in his voice.

Niall takes a deep breath, licks his dry lips. “It started in the middle of the summer before our last year, and we ended it just over a month before graduation,” he explains.

“Which is around the time the two of you had started acting strange around each other,” Liam concludes.

“So, you had an affair for nearly, what, 10 months?” Louis asks, looking even more angry than before.

Niall nods, because he doesn’t trust his voice; only Harry answers with a quiet, “Yes.”

“Why?” Louis demands. “Actually, it doesn’t matter why. How could you?”

“We’re aware of our actions, Louis,” Harry says, then. “We don’t need a lecture. Especially on a night like tonight.”

“You cheated on your boyfriend – a bloke who loved you so bloody much – with your best friend, and his. Do you know how fucked up that is?”

“We’re aware,” Harry repeats.

“Then how could you?”

“Does it really matter?” Niall asks, brows furrowed. “We had an affair. And then we ended it. And then Zayn found out, and then Zayn died-“

“Wait, hang on-“ Louis interrupts, his own face screwed up in confusion. “Zayn found out? When?”

“The night he died,” Niall whispers. “It’s why he was drunk. And it’s why he was in my area of town. He confronted me, and he pushed me around, and tried to fight me but I wouldn’t fight back. And then he left-“

“And you didn’t try to stop him?”

“I don’t- I don’t remember.”

“What do you mean you don’t remember-“

“Louis, stop,” Harry snaps. “It wasn’t his fault-“

“Why don’t you remember?” Louis presses, ignoring Harry once more.

“Because I was drunk too, and I don’t remember everything that happened,” Niall replies. His fingers tighten, again, around the neck of the bottle. He could really use a drink – or the whole thing.

“Why were you drunk too?” Liam asks.

Niall hesitates, bites at the inside of his cheek. Everyone is looking at him, but Harry’s gaze burns the most. He swallows hard around the lump in his throat, and then looks straight at Harry. “I’d been having a hard time dealing with the fact that I’d just lost the love of my life to one of my best friends all over again, and I needed something to take the edge off.”

Louis blinks. “So, Zayn is dead because of you, then.”

“Louis!” Harry shouts incredulously, glaring hard at him. “How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true, as _I_ already told you,” Niall mutters.

“Zayn was perfectly capable of making his own decisions,” Harry argues. “He’s the one that drank, and he’s the one that drove. It’s not Niall’s fault-“

“Zayn wouldn’t have been drunk like that it he wasn’t pissed off,” Louis hisses.

“Then, as I told Niall, both of us are to blame.”

“Yeah, I guess you are.”

“Lou,” Liam whispers, placing his hand on Louis’ shoulder. The latter bloke relaxes visibly. “Lou, we should go.”

Louis whirls around and yanks the door open, disappears back inside the building without another word, let alone one more glance at any of them.

Harry reaches for Liam’s arm before he, too, turns to leave. “You- You don’t really think it was Niall’s fault?”

“Don’t really know what to think,” Liam murmurs.

Niall turns away, breath caught in his throat as Liam follows Louis back inside the pub. He keeps his back to Harry, can’t bear the thought of looking at him right now. Why can’t he just let it go? Why can’t he see, just as Louis – and as Liam must, deep down – that it’s Niall’s fault?

“Niall,” Harry whispers. “Niall, don’t-“

“I’m leaving too,” the blond mutters.

Harry sighs, “Niall-“

“Just- Go home, Harry. Go home to your fiancé.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to shoot me an ask/message on Tumblr if you want to chat!


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s early, but it’s not that early. In fact, no matter how hungover he feels, there’s no way he’s going to get back to sleep now. The only thing that will save him is a cup of steaming hot coffee. So he pushes himself up, groans as he climbs out of bed, pulls on a pair of sweatpants and an old beige jumper, and then heads downstairs.
> 
> He starts the coffee machine, tidies up the kitchen, and then heads towards the front door to check the mail while he waits. He sifts through the envelopes – bill, bill, notice, bill – and then stops when he comes across a slightly smaller envelope, unaddressed, which means that it was probably hand-delivered. His brow furrows in confusion as he drops the envelopes addressed to his father on the counter next to the stove, before tearing the other envelope open with a knife.
> 
> Inside the envelope is a piece of paper. He unfolds it once, twice, and then stares down at the words written neatly across the center of it; _What if it wasn’t an accident?_

Niall’s head hurts the moment he’s conscious. His temples are pounding, his forehead is aching – hell, even the muscles in his arms and legs are sore. He recognizes the symptoms, though; he’s just hungover, is all.

A glance at his bedside table tells him why, as the bottle of Irish whiskey he’d brought home (and continued to consume) last night is now only a quarter of the way full, if that. He groans, squeezes his eyes shut as he reaches out blindly for his phone, which he only vaguely remembers placing on the table beside the bottle before he’d passed out. He finds it, rolls onto his side and presses the home button. The screen lights up; the time on the face of the phone is bright and clear – 8:30.

It’s early, but it’s not that early. In fact, no matter how hungover he feels, there’s no way he’s going to get back to sleep now. The only thing that will save him is a cup of steaming hot coffee. So he pushes himself up, groans as he climbs out of bed, pulls on a pair of sweatpants and an old beige jumper, and then heads downstairs.

He starts the coffee machine, tidies up the kitchen, and then heads towards the front door to check the mail while he waits. He sifts through the envelopes – bill, bill, notice, bill – and then stops when he comes across a slightly smaller envelope, unaddressed, which means that it was probably hand-delivered. His brow furrows in confusion as he drops the envelopes addressed to his father on the counter next to the stove, before tearing the other envelope open with a knife.

Inside the envelope is a piece of paper. He unfolds it once, twice, and then stares down at the words written neatly across the center of it; _What if it wasn’t an accident?_

His stomach churns, because this note can only be about one thing, and… That was an accident. It was definitely an accident. Unless-

The sound of bare feet slapping against the tiles in the kitchen pulls him out of his thoughts, and he makes quick work of shoving the slip of paper into one of the pockets of his joggers right before Theo wraps himself around Niall’s leg. Niall runs a hand through his nephew’s hair, smiles down at him as the toddler looks up and rests his chin against Niall’s thigh. “Morning, bud,” Niall says softly.

“I’m hungry,” Theo replies. “Can you make pancakes, Uncle Ni? With chippy chocolates?”

“You mean chocolate chips,” Niall tells him.

Theo shrugs in response.

Niall laughs softly. “Yeah, alright. I’ll get you a glass of milk, and you can go watch cartoons while I cook, yeah?”

Theo nods, waits patiently as Niall pours a little bit of milk into a sippy cup, thanks Niall when he takes it, and then waddles off into the living room.

Bobby enters the kitchen a few minutes later, while Niall is distracting himself from the note burning a hole through his trousers by mixing together some chocolate chips with the pancake mix he found in the pantry. “Are we having pancakes, then?”

“Theo and I are having pancakes,” Niall replies. “Dunno about you.” He's teasing; as best as he can, anyway.

“Dunno if I’ve got time anyway,” Bobby hums, as he busies himself with starting up the kettle on the stove. “I’m gonna head into work, make sure everything is running smoothly.”

Niall blinks, turns his body to face his father. “What? No, you’re not going into work.”

“I need to check on the shop, Niall,” Bobby says. “I haven’t been there in days-“

“Look, the guys are handling it, da,” Niall tells him firmly. “If they needed your help, they’d tell you.”

“No they wouldn’t.”

Niall sighs. “They’re fine, dad. Sit down, have some tea, and eat some pancakes with us. You’re not going to work.”

Bobby rolls his eyes. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“Sit down, have some tea, and eat some pancakes with us,” Niall repeats, his voice stern.

Bobby lets out a breath, picks up his cup in one hand and curls the other around the back of Niall’s head to pull him forward and smack a kiss against Niall’s temple. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Niall doesn’t say anything, mostly because he doesn’t trust his voice, but – Bobby shouldn’t have to thank him. There’s nothing to thank him for, anyway. It’s just that, well, Bobby buried the love of his life yesterday; he could use a few more days off. And if that means that Niall has physically restrain him from leaving the house, then he’ll do it.

X

Greg finds him in the front all a little while later, bent down to slip his runners onto his feet. He’s grabbed his jacket out of the closet, just in case it gets cool – as one can never tell with the spring weather in England, even though he is wearing a grey jumper.

“Where are you going?” Greg asks curiously, one eyebrow arched.

“’m going to check on the shop,” Niall replies. “Dad wanted to go earlier, but it’s the last place he should be right now – especially today. So I’ll swing by, make sure everything is in order and nothing has burned down. That way I can report back to Bobby, himself, and he won’t have anything else to worry about.”

“You don’t have to do that, Niall.”

“I do, Greg.” And that’s something he firmly believes. He owes this – and plenty more – to their father, for not having been around for the last four years. For not helping out at the shop, for not helping around the house, for not being around while his mother was sick and Bobby was worrying himself self because of it… It’s the least he can do now. “Look, I won’t be long, just-“

“Alright, fine. Make it quick and maybe get another case of beer on the way home. And just- Come back and spend the day with him, yeah? He’d like that, and I think he needs it.”

Niall nods, swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “Think we all do, to be fair.”

X

Richard, Bobby’s oldest friend in town, is the only one there when he gets to the shop. He’s aged a bit in the last four years; has earned himself a few more wrinkles and a bit more grey hair – and he reckons that that’s probably from chasing around his grandson who, if Niall’s math is correct, is about six years old.

“Hey, Rich,” Niall greets as he walks into the garage, hands stuffed into his pockets. It smells like gasoline and oil, and it brings back a lot of memories.

Richard removes himself from the engine of a Range Rover, a wide grin spread across his face. “Well I’ll be,” he hums in amusement. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, hasn’t it, lad?”

“It has,” Niall confirms, shaking the man’s hand.

“Can’t even call you the littlest Horan anymore, either.”

Niall laughs. “No, I guess not. Where’s Jamie?”

“Jamie went to get lunch,” Richard says. “What brings you by, son?”

“Dad wanted to come by, but I made him stay home,” Niall explains.

“As you should. He doesn’t need to concern himself with work on a day like today.”

Niall agrees with a silent nod.

“Neither should you, y’know,” Richard says softly, in that father tone of voice. “Should be at home with your family.”

“I know, I just… I haven’t done much for him lately, so checking in for him now – even though we both know you and the guys are more than capable – is the least I can do.”

Richard nods, like he understands and accepts that. “How is he?”

Niall sighs. “He’s…hanging in there.”

“And you?”

“Same,” Niall murmurs.

Richard doesn’t mention it, but Niall knows he’s thinking about how Zayn’s death affected Niall too. There’s a certain, unspoken understanding; an unspoken rule not to talk about it.

“Listen, kid, you should get home,” Richard tells him, clapping one hand down on Niall’s shoulder. “There’s plenty of time to hang out with the grease monkeys another day. Provided you still know what an engine looks like...” He’s joking, of course; teasing Niall with the fact that he only works with golf carts now.

Niall snorts. “Bet I could fix one quicker than you can.”

“Yeah? Then we’ll put it to the test one day. Get going.”

The heavy feeling in Niall’s chest, the one that’s been there since he got on the plane in L.A., feels just a little bit lighter when he leaves. He reckons it probably has something to do with Richard not treating him like he’s made of glass the whole time. (Even if he kind of might be these days.)

X

Niall almost doesn’t see him. In fact, he doesn’t see him at all until a loud squeal grabs his attention; only then does he notice Louis pulling a slightly cranky looking baby out of his car seat. He thinks about ignoring Louis altogether – thinks he could get into his car, drive away, and Louis would never have to know that he was there; thinks it would probably be much easier than actually approaching Louis after what happened last night anyway. Except, well, he can’t-

“Lou,” Niall calls out, crossing the parking lot from his dad’s car, to Louis’. “Hey.”

Louis looks at him, rolls his eyes. “Now is really not a good time,” he mutters, setting Freddie on his hip before letting the car door close. “I’m cranky because I got woken up much earlier than anticipated because Briana needed me to pick up Freddie, he’s cranky because he hasn’t been able to go down for his nap, and I’m all out of his favourite puree. I don’t need to deal with _you_ too.”

Niall blinks. “I just- I just wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For- I guess for the way you found out.”

Louis hums, looking uninterested as he pops open the trunk to retrieve a bag. Freddie, meanwhile, has found an interest in Niall’s glasses. He reaches out for them, his little index finger pointing at the black frames – and Niall wishes he could bring himself to smile. And Louis, as uninterested as he looks where Niall is concerned, looks every bit in love with his son. “I’m not angry because of how we found out, Niall.”

Niall sighs. “I know. And, believe me- You’ll never be angrier at me than I am at myself, Lou.”

“Good. And Harry?”

“You talk to him more than I do,” Niall says, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I actually stopped talking to him a while back.”

“I know,” Louis mutters. “He spent a long time talking about that, asking Liam and I if we’d heard from you. And, actually, now I get why he was so upset after you left the way you did. He lost his boyfriend, and then he lost his _other boyfriend_ , didn’t he?”

Niall’s stomach lurches. In all the hundreds of times Niall had thought about it – about leaving silently, unexpectedly, without a word weeks before he was supposed to, he’d never thought about it quite like that. He’d never wanted to.

“I need to go,” Louis says, then. “I need to feed this one, and then we both need a nap. I’ll see you around. Then again, maybe I won’t if you’re still skipping town in the next couple of days.”

Niall blinks, watches Louis walk away with Freddie on his hip until they’ve disappeared inside the grocery store before he walks back to his car and climbs in behind the wheel.

++

_It’s quite. It’s well past midnight. Unlike the last several nights, there have been no parties in the dorms around him to keep him awake tonight – and yet, he’s still wide awake, staring at the ceiling. It’s always been hard for him to fall asleep in unfamiliar placed, but this feels significantly worse because it isn’t just about missing home anymore._

_He knows what’s going to happen when sleep finally takes over him. He knows he’s going to have a nightmare, knows he’s going to wake up in a cold sweat with his heart racing, knows he’s going to have to several minutes calming himself down enough to convince himself that Harry isn’t dead too._

_His phone vibrates against his bedside table, and he knows who it is without looking at the call display._  
_He contemplates not answering, because he has class in the morning, reckons it would probably be easier (in the long run, anyway) to just keep letting his calls go to voicemail, thinks he’d give up eventually. And then he answers anyway._

_“Hello?”_

_“Jesus, Niall, finally,” Harry breathes. His voice sounds hoarse; sounds like he’s either been crying, or like he’s trying not to._

_“I’ve been busy,” Niall murmurs._

_Harry sighs. “I know, I just… It would have been nice to at least have gotten the chance to say goodbye.”_

_“I couldn’t. I couldn’t wait that long.”_

_He’s met with silence on the other then, the only sound being Harry’s breathing. Niall closes his eyes and listens to it – in, out, in, out, in, out. Harry is still alive, he tells himself. (Maybe if he reminds himself enough times before he falls asleep, Harry won’t die the same death Zayn did in real life.)_

_“Can I see you when you come back for Christmas?” Harry asks softly, a moment later._

_“I don’t know if I’m coming back.”_

_There’s the sound of rustling sheets, and then Harry- “W-What? What do you mean?”_

_Niall brings one hand up, pinches at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think I’m going back, Harry.”_

_“But- Your family, and your friends, and- Me?”_

_“You and I are done...”_

_There’s less than a second of silence, during which the blond swears he hears Harry’s breath hitch. “Niall-“_

_“We can’t be together,” Niall whispers. “There’s no way, and there’s no use pretending.”_

_“Ni-“_

_“I have to go, alright?” Niall says quickly, interrupting. If he stays on the line, Harry might be able to talk him out of it – and he can’t let that happen. He can’t be with Harry. Not anymore. Not ever again. “I have class in the morning. Goodbye, Harry.”_

_He hangs up before Harry has a chance to respond, and then he turns his phone off._

++

Bobby is passed out on the sofa by the time Niall returns to the living room. Niall smirks slightly in response, sets Bobby’s new bottle of Stella on the coffee table, alongside Niall’s water bottle – and then he starts to tidy up.

He picks a few of Theo’s toys up off the floor – a Tonka truck, and two plastic dinosaurs – and puts them in the toy trunk beside the TV stand; Theo is usually pretty good at picking up after himself, but he’d fallen asleep on the floor before he could finish shortly after dinner, and then Denise and Greg had taken him home. He gathers the last two of Bobby’s empties – Niall had stopped drinking after dinner, just in case – off the table, and discards them in the kitchen. Then he wipes down the counters with a wet piece of paper towel, before tossing it in the bin under the sink.

He’s just finished placing the blanket on the couch over Bobby when there’s a knock at his door. He walks towards the front hall quickly and quietly, but whoever was there is gone by the time he opens the door. A look up and down the street reveals nothing but street lights and emptiness; it’s getting late, after all. He’s about to close the door, when something catches his eye: a white envelope sticking out of the mailbox.

His stomach plummets as he reaches for it. His heart jumps up into his throat as he rips it open, and his hands shake at he pulls out a folded slip of white paper. His breath catches in his throat as he reads the words over – and over, and over.

_What if the brakes were tampered with?_

He feels sick. Feels dizzy. Feels…numb all over.

It’s about Zayn. It has to be about Zayn. Which means…

He fumbles with his phone as he pulls it out of his pocket; finds the only name he can think of and then puts it to his ear. There’s a click and then a response on the second ring.

“I need to see you,” he says urgently, quietly. “Meet me at the bridge, and don’t tell _anyone_.”

X

It’s cold out. So cold that Niall can feel the dampness in his bones, can see his breath in the air. It’s also dark out, apart from the moonlight shining in the sky.

He sees a shadow in the distance, tall and broad – and his stomach churns again. He hates that even just the sight of him brings the butterflies to life in his stomach.

“Hey,” Harry says as he gets closer, his hands shoved into the pockets of a black pea coat. “What’s going on? And what’s with the secrecy?”

Niall hands him the slip of paper, mostly because he doesn’t trust his voice at the moment. His hands are still shaking, and not because he’s cold.

“Jesus,” Harry breathes. “Wh-Where did you get this?”

“My mailbox,” Niall mutters. “Right before I called you. I also got this one this morning.” He digs his right hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out the other slip of paper, then he hands that one to Harry too.

Harry blinks, brows furrowed in confusion.

“It has to be about Zayn,” Niall whispers.

“Maybe someone is playing some kind of sick joke on you,” Harry suggests.

“I don’t… I don’t think so, Harry.”

Harry shakes his head. “It doesn’t make sense though. I mean… You’ve been gone, and now suddenly you’re back and both of these wind up in your dad’s mailbox? It has to be a joke.”

“It doesn’t feel like a joke.”

“Well, no, because you aren’t some twisted individual.”

Niall sighs, takes both notes back and slips them back into his pocket. He feels incredibly unstable, and entirely unsettled. His chest is tight, and his stomach is in knots. “Harry, I don’t think this is a joke.”

“Well, I mean- There was nothing wrong with the car.”

”I don’t think they ever checked the car,” Niall remembers; reminds Harry. “As soon as they found out that Zayn had been drinking, they called it an accident and I don’t think they had a reason to check the car.”

Harry blinks, runs a hand through his hair and then over his face.

“An accident is an accident,” the blond whispers. “But what if it wasn’t an accident?”

Harry looks a bit winded, like the air has been knocked right out of his lungs. It makes Niall feel guilty, because in his sudden haste to just talk to Harry, he hadn’t even thought about how news like this would affect Harry…

“Shit, Haz, I’m sorry,” Niall breathes. “I didn’t-“

“Don’t,” Harry whispers, shaking his head. “Don’t apologize. It’s hard for _both_ of us. I just… I can’t figure out which outcome would be worse, you know? That someone actually did tamper with his brakes, or that someone would lie about it for a twisted prank…”

Niall nods, breathes long and hard, as he leans back against one brick wall of the archway they’re standing under. He lets himself slide to the ground, arse in the grass, elbows resting on his knees in front of him. “I have to go to the police, first thing in the morning.”

Harry nods back as he does the same along the opposite wall. “I’ll go with you.”

Niall isn’t sure about that, but he nods silently anyway.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t remember everything,” Niall whispers. “I don’t even remember much about what happened after that – just that he was so angry, and hurt… I don’t remember seeing anyone around, I don’t remember him leaving. I just- I don’t remember. But I did see him that night.”
> 
> “Which means that his brakes must have been tampered with here,” Winston concludes.
> 
> “I don’t remember seeing anyone,” Niall says again.
> 
> Winston sighs. “Well, is it possible that _you_ tampered with the brakes?”

Niall goes to the police station first thing in the morning. Alone.

He thinks about calling Harry, thinks about letting Harry come along with him. But, well, first of all, it’s quite early – even though he knows that Harry would go with him anyway. And second, there’s really no point to it anyway. He’s going to hand over the notes, explain how he got them, tell them that it might be worth looking into, and then he’s leaving. There isn’t any point in dragging Harry out of bed – and away from his _fiancé_ – so early on a Saturday morning. He’s a big boy. He can do it on his own.

The police station is relatively quiet. Most of the desks are unoccupied, which tells Niall that he must be really early.

He walks up slowly to the first person he sees, a young looking bloke with dirty blond hair, brown eyes, and a sprinkling of stubble along his jaw; he can’t be any older Niall, but Niall doesn’t recognize him. His stomach is in knots, his hands are sweating, and the pieces of paper in his pocket feel impossibly heavy, as he approaches the officer’s desk.

The officer looks up from his paperwork before Niall even has a chance to speak. “Good morning,” he says.

“Hi, uh-“ Niall cuts himself off, thinks for one moment that he should leave; thinks that maybe Harry was right, maybe the notes are just a prank and maybe Niall is just overreacting. And then he stops thinking about it, because it’s _Zayn_.  It’s Zayn and he has to know, one way or another. “I, um, think I need to talk to someone about a possible…murder…” He nearly trips on the word as he forces it out of his mouth.

The bloke looks him up, and then down – and Niall’s stomach churns with the thought that the officer’s first reaction was to look for blood, or maybe even a weapon. “Has a murder occurred?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Niall admits, as he dips his left hand into his pocket. He pulls out the notes, and then holds his hand out for the officer to take them. “I got both of these in the mail. One yesterday morning, and one late last night. I think it has something to do with an accident that happened four years ago.”

“I’ll be right back,” the officer mutters, before pushing out his chair abruptly, and then walking towards the back of the station and through a door into a room.

The door reads Chief Constable Byrne in black letters across the window. The blinds are drawn on the window on the door, as well as both windows along each wall, so Niall can’t even see inside.

Less than a moment later, the officer reemerges from the room along with a man Niall assumes must be Chief Constable Byrne. Byrne is an older, nice looking man, and upon having a closer look, Niall does recognize him from around town.

“You say you got these in the mail?” Byrne asks him, holds up both notes in one hand as he comes around the officer’s desk.

Niall nods, shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot.

“And you think it has to do with which accident?”

“Zayn Malik’s car crash,” Niall says. He hates how his voice wavers. “I was best friends with Zayn, but I haven’t been home in almost four years. My mum’s funeral was a couple days ago, and then I got those in the mailbox.

“I just… I just thought that maybe you could look into it,” he says, then. “I know they never actually checked his car after they found out he was intoxicated, so, I mean-“

“I’ll have a detective look into it,” Byrnes tells him. “He’ll let you know if he finds anything.”

Niall nods. “Thank you, sir.”

He leaves on shaky legs, his stomach twisted up into tighter knots than before – and he texts Harry with quivering fingers before he leaves the parking lot.

X

He’s outside in the front yard with Theo, watching his nephew run and roll around in the grass, when a black car pulls up in front of the house. He watches two men get out, one from the driver’s side and one from the passenger side; one man is tall, with dark hair and facial hair that makes him look a bit like the mask from V for Vendetta, and the other man is only a little bit shorter, with dirty blond hair and a heavier set.

Niall stomach falls into his arse as they start walking up the driveway because he knows what they are, and he knows what they’re doing here. He pushes himself up from the stoop, drags his gaze away from the men towards where Theo is in the midst of climbing onto his tricycle. “Theo, hey,” Niall murmurs, as he lifts the toddler into his arms.

Theo looks at him with wide, curious eyes. He’s so innocent, so blissfully unaware.

“I need you go inside for a bit,” Niall says.

“Why?”

“See those men?” He turns his body slightly so that Theo can finally notice them; Theo nods. “I need to have a word with them, so I need you to go inside.”

Theo pouts, looking like a sad puppy. “But I want to stay with you,” he murmurs. He looks down sadly, plays with one of the buttons on Niall’s jean jacket with his little fingers.

Niall sighs, and it’s like his heart constricts a bit in his chest. “I know,” he whispers back. “But I won’t be long, okay? I promise.” He carries Theo towards the step, where he sets the little boy down and reaches over him to grab the handle of the screen door. He pulls it open, calls for Bobby, and then waits for his dad to meet Theo at the front door.

Bobby comes around the corner, and then gathers Theo into his arms. His gaze sets, then, on the detectives standing in the middle of the driveway. “What’s this about?”

“I’ll explain after,” Niall says, letting the door close. He turns, then, and faces the detectives, swallows hard around the lump in his throat as he walks down the driveway to meet them. “Hey,” he says.

“Mr. Niall Horan, correct?” the tall one asks.

Niall nods, lifting his right hand out as he eyes the beige file folder in the tall man’s hand.

The dark-haired man shakes his hand first. “My name is Ben Winston, and this is my partner James Corden,” he says.

Corden shakes his hand with a nod of his head. “Good afternoon,” he says.

“So, we looked into the reports from Zayn Malik’s accident,” Winston tells him. “We couldn’t get a hold of the car, obviously, but there we pictures that had been taken inside and outside of the car, and it’s clear that the brakes had, in fact, been tampered with.”

Niall blinks. He can feel his jaw tighten, and his stomach turn over. He knew it- He _knew_ that it was going to be real, and yet hearing it now – out loud – makes him feel sick.

Someone tampered with the brakes in Zayn’s car. Someone wanted to kill him – or at the very least hurt him. Why?

“You said you found the notes in the mail, correct?” Corden asks.

“Yes. Can I- Can I ask something? Why…why did it never come up?”

“It’s hard to tell, given how long ago it was,” Corden tells him. “It is likely, however, that it just got overlooked when the report came back that Malik had been intoxicated.”

“Right, okay,” Niall murmurs.

“You said you were friends with Malik, is that right?” Winston asks, then.

Niall nods. “We grew up together.”

“With three other lads, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Niall confirms. “Louis, Liam, Harry, Zayn, and myself- We were all really close. Zayn and Harry dated.”

James writes something in a little black notebook.

“Right,” Winston says. “And is it true that you’ve been gone for nearly four years?”

Niall nods, licks his lips. “Yes. My mum passed away last week, so I came back for the funeral.”

“Why did you leave?”

“School. I studied business management in the U.S.”

“Why did you not come back at all for four years?”

Niall’s chest tightens, and he feels a dizzy as he takes a deep breath, stuffs his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Zayn’s death was really hard on all of us, and I just… I couldn’t imagine coming back here, and not thinking about him. It was just easier to not come back.”

Winston nods. He doesn’t look very impressed. “Right, so- You leave for school after Zayn’s funeral, you’re not around for four years, and now you’ve been back for only a few days and these notes pop up?”

Niall feels uneasy under Winston’s star, shifts from foot to foot uncomfortably. He knows what Winston is trying to imply, and it makes him feel even sicker than before. “I can’t explain it. But, someone obviously knows something, so-“

“Where were you on the night of Zayn Malik’s death, Mr. Horan?”

Niall blinks. “I was here,” he says. “I was home.”

“Can anyone vouch for that? Your father, your brother, a friend-“

“No,” Niall whispers.

“The scene of the accident is only about a block away from here,” Corden mentions – as if that’s something Niall can ever forget. “But he lives on the other side of town-“

“I saw him,” Niall breathes. “He was here.”

“Was he drunk when he left here?” Winston asks, folding his arms over his chest.

If that’s supposed to intimidate Niall, then he hates that it’s working. It takes everything he has not to allow himself to shrink under the detective’s gaze. “We were both drunk.”

“Did you have a party of some sort?”

Niall swallows hard, takes a deep breath, and then- “We had a fight.”

Winston raises an eyebrow.

And Niall knows that he has to tell them. He has to. He has to confess to the affair now, before they find out some other way. He has to cooperate. “He was drunk, and he was angry, and he showed up here unannounced because he’d found out that his boyfriend – Harry – and I had been having an affair,” he admits. It takes the breath right out of him, and he has to take a minute to catch it.

“Go on,” Winston urges.

Niall licks his lips, balls his hands into fists inside his pockets. He feels like he’s going to fall apart. “I was drunk too,” he murmurs. “I opened the door, and he burst through it so quickly I didn’t even know it was him at first – until he pinned me to the wall and got right in my face. Right away he just started screaming at me, and saying foul things, and then he started to say vulgar things about Harry and- I tried to defend him, but that only made Zayn angrier…”

“Then what happened?” Corden asks softly.

“I don’t remember everything,” Niall whispers. “I don’t even remember much about what happened after that – just that he was _so_ angry, and hurt… I don’t remember seeing anyone around, I don’t remember him leaving. I just- I don’t remember. But I did see him that night.”

“Which means that his brakes must have been tampered with _here_ ,” Winston concludes.

“I don’t remember seeing anyone,” Niall says again.

Winston sighs. “Well, is it possible that _you_ tampered with the brakes?”

And- Niall had seen that coming – could have seen it from a mile away, and yet the air still rushes out of his lungs and his stomach still flips over. His brow furrows. “Of course not. I wouldn’t have- No.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because he was one of my friends, and I wouldn’t have-“ He cuts himself of; can’t even think it, let alone say it out loud. “Besides, when would I have had the time?”

Winston arches a skeptical eyebrow. “He was ‘one of your best friends’, and yet you were fucking his boyfriend behind his back-“

“That’s different-“

“And I don’t know when you would have had the time, but it’s not like you can even remember, is it?”

Niall blinks, taken aback. “I didn’t tamper with his brakes,” he says firmly, despite the way his whole body seems to be shaking.

“You do have the knowledge though, right? Seeing as your father is a mechanic.”

“I didn’t tamper with his brakes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know myself,” Niall replies. “I would never have hurt him-“

“Except for those times you fucked his boyfriend-“

“That was different!” Niall shouts, ripping his hands out of his pockets. He doesn’t do anything else, barely even moves an inch, but he feels too constricted, too claustrophobic with his hands in his pockets now. He blinks, then, stares between both of the detectives staring back at him. He hates that he can’t read either of their facial expressions. “What happened between Harry and I was… It was a mistake – it was a lot of mistakes. We were stupid, and reckless, but it doesn’t mean that I killed Zayn because of it.

“And, anyway- It had already been over for a couple of months,” he whispers.

Corden writes something down in his notebook, and then looks back up at Niall. “Who ended it?”

“Me, technically, but- We both agreed to it; we both knew it was for the best,” Niall says.

“How did he find out about it, then?”

Niall shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Winston looks at Corden; Corden looks at Winston. It’s like they’re having their own secret, silent conversation, and Niall has just been let there, uneasy and uncomfortable. The both turn back to face him a moment later, but it’s Winston who speaks. “Right, well, I think we’re done for now. We’ll be in touch – and I’d highly advise that you don’t leave town just yet.”

“Am I a suspect, then?”

“You’re a person of interest.”

 

He doesn’t recall the detectives leaving, or even going back inside the house – and it’s not until he’s walking through to the kitchen that he’s aware that he even is inside the house. Theo is on the couch, thumb in his mouth, sippy cup in his lap, as he watches some cartoon Niall can’t be bothered to remember the name of on TV. He finds Bobby in the kitchen, making tea.

“Well?” Bobby asks expectantly. “You gonna tell me what that was about?”

Niall runs a hand through his hair as he lets out a long breath. “Zayn’s accident wasn’t just an accident,” he whispers.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“A blank envelope came in the mail yesterday morning, and when I opened it there was a note inside that said, ‘What if it wasn’t an accident?’,” Niall explains. “And then last night, someone knocked at the door and when I went to answer it nobody was there but there was another envelope, so I opened it, and- It was another note, which said, ‘What if the brakes were tampered with?’ So…I called Harry, had him meet up with me, and we both agreed that I should take them to police, just in case – which is where I went this morning.

“That just now, was them telling me that the brakes _had_ been tampered with.”

Bobby arches an eyebrow. “Is that all? That was an awfully long conversation for that to be all that they had to say.”

Niall shrugs; he can’t tell Bobby the truth. Not yet. The last thing Bobby needs to worry about right now is Niall. “They just asked me a few questions, that’s all. You know, police stuff. No big deal.”

Bobby nods, breathes a sigh of relief. “Right, then. Are you going to help me with dinner?”

“I, uh- I actually have to call Harry, just to let him know what’s going on. I won’t be long.”

He ducks out of the kitchen, then, and out through the patio door to the backyard. He makes sure the door is closed behind him, before he pulls his phone out of his back pocket, and then continues to walk a little bit further away from the door as he waits for Harry to answer.

Harry answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, um- Can you talk?” Niall asks, kicking at the ground with the toe of his boot. His heart feels like it’s in his throat again.

There’s some rustling – which Niall really doesn’t need to distinguish, some whispered voices, and then a moment of silence before Harry comes back. “I can talk now.”

“A couple of detectives just came by,” Niall starts, looking up at the sky. “They said the brakes had, in fact, been tampered with.”

“Jesus,” Harry breathes.

“I told them everything. At least, everything I could.”

“What?”

“I told them that he was here that night, and I told them why-“

“Niall-“

“Which means that I’m now a person of interest,” the blond explains. The thought still makes him want to throw up.

“Why did you tell them?” Harry demands.

“Because that’s the only thing I’ve ever had to hide, and if I continue to hide that while being a suspect, it would only make things worse for me – for both of us.”

Harry sighs. “Fuck…”

“They might come talk to you too,” Niall murmurs. “So just- Tell them the truth, yeah?”

“If you’re a suspect, then that must mean that I am too, right?”

Niall shrugs, despite the fact that Harry can’t see him. “I don’t know,” he whispers. “Just…be honest. No more lying.”

“No more lying,” Harry whispers back.

**

_He doesn’t remember how he got here. Doesn’t remember stumbling out to the garage, doesn’t remember where Zayn went, doesn’t remember lifting the hood of Zayn’s car or grabbing a pair of his dad’s clippers off of the work bench… He doesn’t remember why he’s here._

_But he remembers Zayn being angry, remembers him pushing past Niall into the house, remembers him pinning Niall against the wall in the front hall-_

_He can feel the scrape on his left cheekbone, right underneath his ear – feels the burn of it, can still feel the sting of Zayn’s fist._

_Perhaps that’s why he’s here._

_He hears the door open as he’s stepping away from the car, hood down. Watches Zayn step down into the garage, an ugly, angry scowl on usually pretty face._

_“Get the fuck away from my car,” Zayn slurs. He pushes Niall away, and then climbs in behind the wheel._

_“Zayn,” Niall calls out, suddenly, and his voice sounds foreign to his own ears. “Zayn, don’t go-“_

_“Don’t fucking talk to me,” Zayn hisses._

_“Zayn, something’s wrong-“_

_“Leave me the fuck alone, Niall.”_

_Niall watches, silently, helplessly, clippers clutched between his fingers as Zayn reverses quickly out of his driveway and the speeds off down the road._

**

He wakes with a start, his heartbeat racing in his chest and his stomach up in his throat. He sits up, runs both hands through his hair, takes deep breaths to calm himself down.

He knows it’s not real. He knows that never happened. He knows that it’s just another bad dream – a nightmare – because he feels guilty, and he can’t let it go, and now that he knows that it wasn’t an accident – and that he’s a suspect – it’s made everything feel worse. He knows that’s all it is, and yet-

He can’t help himself from wondering... Can’t help himself from thinking…

X

Harry’s at the door when he answers it a couple hours later.

Niall blinks, takes a moment to take Harry in – his hair, thrown up into a messy bun, his black jumper (broad shoulders), black skinny jeans (long legs), brown boots. He looks tired, Niall thinks. Perhaps he, like Niall, didn’t get much sleep last night. “Uh, hey,” he murmurs.

“Come out for a minute,” Harry requests softly, shoving his hands into the pocket of his jumper. He cocks his head as he takes a step back.

Niall’s only wearing a pair of joggers and a thin, long-sleeved shirt, but he steps out onto the stop anyway, lets the door close behind him. “What’s going on?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest in an attempt to keep his body heat contained. It’s a bit nippy out this morning.

“The detectives came to the house last night,” Harry tells him. “They asked me about Zayn, and about you and Zayn – and about the affair, obviously.”

Niall nods.

“I told them everything I could.”

“Did you tell them the truth?”

“Of course,” Harry whispers. “And I told them that you didn’t do it.”

Niall isn’t sure if that’s a good thing at the moment, or a bad thing – because they probably know, now, that Niall had contacted Harry after he’d spoken with them, which he isn’t sure is a good thing or a bad thing. But he’s grateful, nonetheless.

“I haven’t heard anything from Louis and Liam, though. Have you?”

“No.”

Harry licks his lips, shifts from one foot to the other. “I think we should talk to them.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re the last people that either of them want to see right now.”

“I know, I just- I think they’d rather hear from us that it wasn’t an accident, you know?”

And, well, Harry probably isn’t wrong. If Niall hadn’t been the one to get the notes, he wouldn’t want to find out through the police either.

“I also think that maybe we can all brainstorm together…someone who could have done it,” Harry whispers.

Niall snorts, rolls his eyes. “And, what- Take over the investigation?”

Harry blinks, stares at him. “You’re a suspect, Niall. And I don’t think it would hurt to at least talk to them about it, and see if they know anyone that maybe we don’t-“

“Alright,” Niall mutters. “Alright. Just- Let me go get changed.”

Harry nods, before heading back down the driveway to where his car is parked, as Niall turns around to go back inside. He’s not sure if this is good idea; doesn’t think that doing their own little investigation will help anything. But Harry seems adamant, and a little bit desperate and, well… Niall would be lying if he tried to say that a little part of him didn’t want to do it.

X

Harry rings the doorbell, and then steps back to align himself with Niall on the front step of Louis’ house.

Louis is their first order of business, because if they can convince Louis to talk to them, then it’ll be a walk in the park to get Liam involved. Or, so they think.

Niall feels a bit anxious, even though he isn’t alone, standing out on the stoop, waiting for Louis to answer the door. He knows that Louis is still pissed off at them – and he has every right to be, honestly. It just…makes Niall feel anxious, makes him feel uneasy. The whole situation makes him feel uneasy though too, which doesn’t help.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Harry standing next to him. He’s biting at his bottom lip, and fidgeting a bit with his fingers. He’s nervous too. And Niall wants to reach out to him, wants to steady his hand and calm him down – but he can’t. Not here. Not now. Probably not ever again.

His thoughts are broken apart by the voice muffled through the door. It’s not Louis’, but it’s familiar and it’s- Shit.

Niall finds himself holding his breath as the door swings open – and then it all comes out at once quickly, in a literal, audible gasp he can’t contain. It’s Liam, of course it is , which is who he was expecting, but what he wasn’t expecting was for Liam to be shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of joggers whilst holding Freddie in his arms.

“Oh,” Liam mutters, blinking rapidly in confusion. “Um, hi-“

“What are you doing here?” Harry asks bluntly. His eyebrows are scrunched together when Niall glances at him. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

“I-“

“Liam, babe, who’s at the-“ Louis cuts himself off as he comes around the corner and pokes his head over Freddie’s shoulder. Louis, who is equally as shirtless. “Oh.”

Niall blinks in confusion. “Are you guys-“

“What are you doing here?” Louis demands, as he takes Freddie from Liam’s arms. Freddie looks seemingly unfazed, apart from the fact that he whirls his head around so that he can continue to stare between Niall and Harry.

“We needed to talk to you,” Harry tells him. “What is _he_ doing here?”

“Are you two – _dating_?” Niall asks incredulously. “How the bloody hell did that happen?”

“Maybe- I think maybe we should go inside,” Liam suggests, stepping back into the foyer. He pulls at Louis’ arm to bring him inside.

“Maybe I don’t want them to come inside,” Louis protests.

“Yeah, well, Niall and I weren’t the only ones keeping a secret, were we?” Harry snaps. “You don’t get to judge us right now.”

“We also just need to talk to you guys about something important,” Niall interjects.

Louis huffs. “Fine.”

Niall lets Harry inside first. He follows the three – four, including Freddie – through the house until they get to the kitchen. Because all meaningful conversations happen in the kitchen and, well, it looks like Liam and Louis were in the middle of making their own breakfast, while feeding Freddie at the same time. Niall hovers in the doorway, watches first as Louis place his son back into his highchair and then as Liam pulls open the fridge door to get a carton of milk for the two bowls of cereal sitting on the counter. It all seems very domestic, like they’ve done this kind of thing a hundred times before and one, proper glance at the fridge door as Liam closes it once he’s put the milk back, tells it’s definitely a…thing; that is, if the picture of the three of their faces, pinned to the door with a red ‘F’ magnet, is anything to go by.

“How long has this been going on?” Harry demands, arms folded over his chest.

“About eight months, properly,” Liam murmurs.

“Right, then- How long in total?”

Liam looks at Louis, who glances back at Liam before setting his gaze on Freddie, and rubbing his hand gently over the baby’s head. He smiles fondly, as the baby just continues to munch on dry Cheerios. “We had a thing for a few months during school,” Louis replies.

“Like…during uni?”

Louis shakes his head. “During our last year, same as you…”

Niall’s brow furrows in anger. “So you had an affair too, then,” he snaps. “You _both_ cheated on your girlfriends, and then acted like Harry and I were the worst people on the planet when you found out about us? That’s bullshit.”

Louis glares at him. “Ours only lasted a little while, and we only ever slept together a couple of times-“

“So?” Harry asks, voice raised. “You’re such a hypocrite if you think that just because it didn’t last ‘as long’ it doesn’t mean it’s just as bad.”

“At least ours didn’t end in one of our friends getting himself killed,” Louis hisses.

“Guys,” Liam murmurs, trying to interject.

Harry scoffs. “That was beyond our control – and you know it, Lou.”

“If you’d never cheated on your boyfriend, then he’d still be alive.”

“Or not, considering it wasn’t an accident,” Niall says. The whole room falls silent, then – including Freddie. Harry isn’t looking at him, seems to be more interested in a spot on the floor, but Louis and Liam are, with identical expressions of confusion.

Liam blinks. “W-What are you talking about?”

Niall licks his dry lips, swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “The brakes in Zayn’s car were tampered with that night. He didn’t crash his car because he was drunk… It was because his brakes wouldn’t work.”

“How do you know that?” Louis asks.

“I got a couple of suspicious notes in the mail the other day, and I took them to the police yesterday. They went into the reports from the accident, and- They came back and told me that the brakes actually had been tampered with.”

“Jesus,” Louis breathes. He pushes his bowl of cereal away from him, looks at Liam – who also looks like he’s just lost his appetite, and then back at Niall. “Did you talk to them?”

“The detectives think he’s a suspect,” Harry says.

“No,” Liam whispers. “No, they can’t- Do they?”

Niall nods. “’ _Person of interest_ ’, was their exact phrase,” he mutters.

“Because you fucked Zayn’s boyfriend,” Louis says.

The blond flinches, closes his eyes. He hates it when it’s put like that, for a multitude of reasons he could never say out loud. “That’s exactly why.”

“You told them that you didn’t, right?” Liam asks.

“Of course I did.”

“We thought we should be the ones to tell you, rather than the detectives,” Harry says softly. “We were also hoping that we could all sit down and maybe try to figure out who would have wanted to hurt Zayn…”

Louis and Liam look at each other.

“I mean, unless you’d rather just play house-“

“Harry,” Niall murmurs.

“What? They treated us like shit at your mother’s funeral for doing, more or less, the same thing they’d done.”

Niall can’t argue that, so instead he falls silent. He just- Fighting isn’t going to solve anything, it isn’t going to fix anything, and it sure as hell isn’t going to bring Zayn back. There’s no point in it.

“And now they’ve been hiding their relationship-“

“We haven’t been hiding,” Liam argues.

“Well, you sure as hell never told me about it,” Harry points out. “Because I’d remember.”

“We didn’t plan it, Harry,” Louis says. “It just- After we both graduated uni, and after Briana and I tried to make it work for Freddie and it failed, we were both here and he was helping me out as a friend, and then it just…happened. Old feelings came back, and-”

“We didn’t tell you because we wanted to make sure it was even going to work first,” Liam adds.

“And we weren’t even mad at you guys for having an affair- I mean, we weren’t very pleased, obviously, but we just – I just – couldn’t stop thinking about Zayn, and about how he’s dead.” Louis pauses, looks right at Niall. “And then all I could think about was that he was drunk because of it, and you were the last person to see him-“

“I know, Tommo,” Niall whispers. His eyes burn, and he can feel them getting wet. His chest is tight with sobs he refuses to let go of. “I think about it every day. I’ve thought about it every day since, and- It’s like I said, nobody will ever be angrier at me than myself.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Harry whispers.

And- Niall hates that. He hates that Harry keeps saying that; hates how Harry can actually think that, let alone believe it. Because how isn’t it Niall’s fault? Sure, the affair is on both of them – but it was Niall that Zayn came to see that night, and it was Niall he was pissed off at, and it was Niall that should have stopped him from leaving.

“He was there, and he was drunk, because of something we both did,” Harry says softly. “But he didn’t die because of you – he died because someone tampered with his brakes. For all we know, he would have gotten home safe otherwise.”

“But we don’t know that, do we?” Niall asks rhetorically.

“Niall-“

“You know what confuses me?” Liam asks, interrupting – which Niall is silently thankful for. He places his uneaten, and probably soggy, bowl of cereal on the counter behind him, then folds his arms over his chest. He looks thoughtful. “Why was his first thought to go see you, Nialler? Why not Harry, considering Harry was actually his boyfriend?”

Niall’s stomach flips over.

Harry shrugs. “He knew I was out with my mum,” he says. “He probably knew that Niall was at home alone.”

“Liam’s got a point though,” Louis mutters thoughtfully, eyebrows scrunched together as he tries to gather his thoughts. “I mean, if it were me in that position, whether you were with your mum or not wouldn’t have mattered. I would have found you first.”

“Maybe-“

“He knew about my feelings for Harry,” Niall admits. He drops his gaze, chews at the inside of his cheek, tries to even out his breathing so that he doesn’t pass out.

“What are you talking about?” Harry breathes.

Niall lifts his gaze, then, and trains it on Harry. He can feel Louis’ and Liam’s gazes on him, but Harry’s is the only one that matters; it’s the only one that makes him feel like he’s going to throw up. “He knew about how I felt about you before anything even happened between us.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, and he shifts from one foot to the other like he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, let alone this information. “H-How?”

“He asked me.”

++

_Niall’s in the middle of a long drag of Zayn’s joint when Zayn asks him. The question almost doesn’t register in his mind – until it does, and then he’s coughing, choking on the smoke in his lungs as he struggles to blow it out through the screen in his bedroom window. “What?” he croaks a moment later, staring across the windowsill at his friend._

_Zayn puts his hand out for the joint, so Niall gives it to him. He takes a short drag, hold it for a few seconds, and then lets it go. “I just want to know, man,” he murmurs, looking back at Niall. “I…I see the way you look at him sometimes, and I see the way you are around him, and- I just want to know.”_

_Niall licks his lips, glances briefly out the window at the grey sky, watches the rain come down from the sky in droplets that splash and crash and burst against the roof below him. He thinks about lying. Thinks about talking his way around it, but- He isn’t sure that he can, is the thing. The other thing is that he isn’t even sure if Zayn would believe him if he tried. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I have feelings for him.”_

_Zayn takes another drag. Hold it for a bit longer this time. And then blows it through the screen. “For how long?”_

_“You don’t want to know.”_

_“Niall, how long?”_

_Niall drags his gaze up to meet Zayn’s, and it’s like Zayn is looking straight through him. “For as long as I can remember,” he breathes. And then he accepts the joint as Zayn passes it back to him. And as he takes another drag, he wonders how pathetic it would make him sound if Niall says that his feelings go all the way back to when he was five years old._

_“So- You had feelings for him when I told you about asking him out?”_

_Niall nods._

_Zayn runs a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you say anything?”_

_Niall shrugs, “Knew I wouldn’t have a shot. He’s always been infatuated with you.”_

_The dark-haired lad rolls his eyes. “Not sure that’s true, mate.”_

_Niall sighs, passes the joint back and then pushes himself away from the windowsill. He sits on the edge of his bed, and then lets himself fall back. He stares at the ceiling. “Look, Zee, it’s not like it matters, alright? He’s with you. He loves you.”_

_Zayn hums._

++

“He blamed me for the affair,” Niall mutters. “That’s why he came to find me first. Said I must have seduced you or something because I’d always been in love with you.“

Harry shakes his head. “Niall-“

“That’s why he was at my house,” the blond continues. “Because he wasn’t mad at you, Haz. He was mad at me. He said some vulgar things about you, but it wasn’t actually you that he was angry at.”

“You never told me that,” Harry breathes. “Why did you never tell me that?”

Niall sighs, shakes his head slightly. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you that he knew, knowing that I’d still want you to be with me. I couldn’t acknowledge _exactly_ how wrong it was, and then continue to have you.

“It would have changed everything, and I didn’t want it to. I was selfish. I denied it for so long, I tried to forget about it, I pretended like I didn’t care every time I saw you with him – and then I didn’t have to deny it, and I didn’t want to forget about it, and pretending like I didn’t care that I saw you with him didn’t hurt as much as it had because I got to have you too, and that was enough for me.”

Harry blinks, looks like he’s still trying to process everything Niall has just told him. Niall wishes he hadn’t had to tell Harry at all.

“Right,” Louis says, then, clearing his throat. “Well, that explains why Zayn went straight to find Niall. Should we just skip to the part where we start trying to figure out who could have wanted to hurt Zayn, then?”

“Yeah,” Niall mutters, as Harry turns away from him. “Yeah, we should do that.”

X

They can’t think of anyone. Not a single person comes to mind. Zayn was on good terms with pretty well everyone, is the thing, and even if he wasn’t, nobody hated him enough to try and kill him – and none of them would have even had any real motive.

Which means that Niall remains the only person with any motive.

It’s getting late now. So late, in fact, that Bobby might already be in bed. And Niall is sort of hoping that he is; it’s been a long day, and he just needs to be alone now. He wants to not have to think about anything. Wants to go straight to bed, if he’s being honest.

The ride back to Niall’s house is quiet. In fact, Harry has barely spoken to him since Niall’s admission this morning. He knows that Harry isn’t mad at him – hopes he isn’t, anyway – but he wonders if maybe Harry is just a little bit put off by the new information. He wonders if Harry is uncomfortable around him now – now that he knows exactly how selfish Niall had been. Part of him reckons that it might be a good thing if he is.

It’s when Niall is about to thank Harry for driving before he gets out of the car that Harry finally speaks to him, and it catches him off guard; “I was going to leave him,” he murmurs.

Niall freezes, stiff fingers wrapped around the door handle.

“I wanted to be with you so badly,” Harry whispers. He settles back against his seat, rests his head back and then looks at Niall. “I was going to tell him, and then the accident happened, and everything got so messed up, and- I ended up telling him when he was in the coma, just on the off chance that he would hear me. And then he died a couple days later. And then you left a couple of weeks after that, before I could even tell _you_.

“I lost you both in what felt like a heartbeat.”

Niall blinks away tears. “Harry-“

“That’s why I kept calling. That’s why I wanted so badly for you to just…talk to me.”

“I couldn’t,” Niall whispers.

“I know,” Harry whispers back.

Niall takes a breath, and then pushes the door open. He needs to get inside. There is a ball of sobs inside his chest, trying to crawl up his throat, and his eyes are burning, and his hands are shaking – and if he doesn’t get inside, he’s going to fall apart in the middle of his driveway, and Harry will try to comfort him, and he can’t-

He can’t do that. So he says goodnight quickly, before hurrying towards the door.

He barely gets the door closed before he’s falling against it, and then sliding down it to sit on the floor. He pulls his legs towards him. He lets the tears trickle down his cheeks. And then he lets the sobs rush out of him – and he cries.

He cries for Zayn, because Zayn is dead. He cries because he doesn’t know why. And he cries because if only Zayn had never found out – if only Zayn were still alive – then maybe he and Harry would have worked after all.

Maybe they could have been together, and not so many people would have been hurt.


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I called the L.A. police department,” Winston explains, as Corden opens the file. Sure enough, the letterhead at the top of each page indicates that they’ve been faxed from the L.A. police department in the United States. “They’re Horan’s arrest records from his first two years there. That kid has been arrested more than a few times for starting ‘bar fights’, as the Americans say.”
> 
> “Was he ever charged?” Corden asks, as he flips briefly through the file. As far as he can tell, the answer is a no.
> 
> “No.”
> 
> Corden closes the file, and then hands it back to Winston. “The most this proves is that the kid has some anger issues, maybe, since Malik’s death,” he says. “It doesn’t mean anything – especially considering Horan never even so much as served a detention when he was in school here.”
> 
> Winston shrugs. “It could be his way of coping with killing his best friend for his lover – especially if Styles no longer wanted him.”
> 
> “Or he just felt guilty after everything that happened between them, and he’s been depressed and angry. Anger is one of the stages of grief.”
> 
> “Or he feels guilty because he’s guilty of murder.”

_“Why do you stay with him?”_

_Harry glances across the room at him, blinks in confusion as he taps his pen against his notebook. “What do you mean?”_

_“He neglects you,” Niall tells him._ I would never neglect you _, he thinks, but doesn’t say._

_“He doesn’t neglect me,” Harry protests gently. “He’s just forgetful sometimes.”_

_Niall rolls his eyes. “How many times has he forgotten your date night, again?”_

_Harry sighs. “Four-“_

_“In how many weeks?”_

_“Two- But Niall, it’s- It’s not that bad,” Harry says softly._

_“Really? Because 20 minutes ago you were crying, Haz.”_

_“I know,” Harry mutters. He sighs as he pushes himself to his feet, and then pads slowly across the room before he lets himself fell on top of Niall, where the blond is sprawled out across the top of his bed. Niall groans and pushes him until Harry rolls over, off of Niall and onto his back as he stares up at the ceiling. “He loves me,” he whispers._

_Niall hums._

_“He loves me, he just- He gets forgetful whenever he’s working on a new art project and…that’s why I stay with him,” Harry says. “Because I love him, and he loves me – and he doesn’t mean it, he just forgets.”_

_“He forgets a lot,” Niall murmurs. (And he can say that because in addition to Zayn ‘forgetting’ that he and Harry have a date planned four times in the last two weeks, he’s forgotten plenty of other dates – and various anniversaries – over the last several months, at least. Niall knows this because Harry has wound up hanging out with Niall, playing video games and drinking beer that Greg bought them, every single time.)_

_“We rescheduled for Friday,” Harry tells him._

_Niall makes a mental note to keep his evening open on Friday, just in case. (He hates himself for it a little bit too.)_

++

Corden is just about to take his first sip of his morning tea, when a beige file folder lands on his desk beside his own pile of paperwork. When he looks up, it’s to see Winston standing behind him. “Morning,” Corden mumbles. He takes a sip of his tea anyway.

“Good morning, indeed,” Winston replies. “Have a look.”

“What is it?”

“I called the L.A. police department,” Winston explains, as Corden opens the file. Sure enough, the letterhead at the top of each page indicates that they’ve been faxed from the L.A. police department in the United States. “They’re Horan’s arrest records from his first two years there. That kid has been arrested more than a few times for starting ‘bar fights’, as the Americans say.”

“Was he ever charged?” Corden asks, as he flips briefly through the file. As far as he can tell, the answer is a no.

“No.”

Corden closes the file, and then hands it back to Winston. “The most this proves is that the kid has some anger issues, maybe, since Malik’s death,” he says. “It doesn’t mean anything – especially considering Horan never even so much as served a detention when he was in school here.”

Winston shrugs. “It could be his way of coping with killing his best friend for his lover – especially if Styles no longer wanted him.”

“Or he just felt guilty after everything that happened between them, and he’s been depressed and angry. Anger is one of the stages of grief.”

“Or he feels guilty because he’s guilty of murder.”

Corden rolls his eyes, takes another sip from his cup. “It’s circumstantial. And it’s certainly not enough to make our own arrest.”

“For now,” Winston concedes. He isn’t stupid, after all. “But it’s enough to keep him under surveillance, so I’m sending someone out to his father’s house.”

“That seems like a waste of time.”

Winston shrugs. “I’d like to know what he’s up to,” he says. “And I’d also like to make sure that he doesn’t take off.”

“He knows he’s not supposed to.”

“He’s run away from his problems once before; who’s to say he wouldn’t try it again?”

Corden sighs. “Right, well, I’m gonna call Styles and see about asking him some more questions.”

X

The last thing he expects to see upon entering the kitchen is, strangely enough, his father sitting at the kitchen table. Bobby is supposed to be at work today, is the thing. And yet he’s here, cup of coffee in one hand, flipping through the newspaper with the other.

“Morning,” Bobby says. “Coffee is still hot, if you want a cup.

“Thanks,” Niall murmurs, as he moves across the kitchen to poor himself a mug. “I, uh- I thought you were going to work today?”

“I was,” Bobby replies. “I am. I just- I had a hard time getting out of bed, is all.”

Niall frowns, ignores the way his chest tightens. “Da, if you aren’t ready-“

“I am – I’m ready. Just…slow going.”

“Dad,” Niall murmurs.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Bobby asks, then, as he pushes himself to his feet. “You can help out around the shop for a couple hours, make the day go by a bit faster for all of us.”

Niall shrugs. “I haven’t worked on cars in ages.”

Bobby smirks. “Then it’ll be just like old times, yeah?”

Niall rolls his eyes, despite the smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah,” he whispers, as his father discards his coffee mug in the sink before he mutters something about going out to start the car. “Just like old times.”

++

_“Hey, um, Mr. Mechanic?”_

_Niall rolls his eyes, bites at his lip to keep from smiling, but he doesn’t move from where he’s bent over the side of his dad’s old car, his face practically stuffed against the engine. “Yeah?”_

_“There’s an issue with my car, and I was wondering if you could help me.”_

_“Depends,” Niall drawls._

_“I promise to make it worth your while.”_

_Niall snorts as he drags his forearm across his sweaty forehead, before placing both hands on the edge of the car to push himself up. He lifts his gaze and looks across the engine at where his visitor is standing, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. “How’s that?”_

_“Well, the back seat is really wide, and you’re kinda hot, so I wouldn’t mind letting you-“_

_Niall’s around the car in what he considers to be record timing – well before Harry can actually finish saying ‘you’, to clamp a greasy hand over Harry’s mouth. “My da’s inside,” he hisses, despite the laughter in his voice._

_Harry shrugs, smirk tugging at his lips beneath Niall’s palm before he pulls his hand away. “Never stopped you before.”_

_“Yeah, well, this time he’s awake.” Niall turns, then, to pull the hood of the car down._

_“I’m serious though,” Harry says, propping a hip against the passenger side. “Mum’s car needs an oil change. Do it for me?”_

_Niall pretends to scoff as he rolls his eyes once more. “Y’know, I’m starting to think the only reason you want anything to do with me is because I fix your mum’s car for free.”_

_“I mean, that’s definitely a bonus – but it’s also definitely not the whole reason,” Harry murmurs as he comes around the car to where Niall’s standing at the work bench against the wall. He presses the whole front of his body against the back of Niall’s, snakes one hand around the blond’s waist and dips it beneath the waistband of his trousers and uses the other hand to tug Niall’s hips back gently until the curve of his arse is pressed against Harry’s crotch. “There’s definitely a few other reasons.”_

_The blond feels himself melt against the boy behind him – lets himself, for a moment, revel in the fact that Harry is here with him. But only for a moment, because Bobby is inside and the last thing either of them need is for Bobby to realize that it’s Harry’s car in the driveway and for him to come out and say hello – only to find them like this. He slides out from between the workbench and Harry’s body, takes a couple of steps aside as he wipes his hands down with a rag. “Do you want me to do that oil change, or what?”_

_Harry grins, cocks his head to the side. “How about an oil change now, and then an ‘or what’ later?”_

_Niall finds himself scoffing, despite the smile plastered to his lips as he walks towards where Harry has parked Anne’s car behind Niall’s._

_“This is new.”_

_The brunet glances over his shoulder as he pops the hood, sees Harry holding up the new pipe cutter Bobby gave him. “Yeah,” he grins. “Da gave it to me yesterday. Engraved it and everything. Sick, huh?”_

_Harry smirks. “It’s cute how excited you get over new tools,” he hums, as he places the cutter back where he found it. “Hot too. Like a perfect balance-“_

_“Don’t,” Niall scoffs. “Don’t you dare get that cliché on me.”_

_Harry pouts as he pushes himself away from the workbench. “Sometimes clichés are true, y’know. Like right now.”_

_Niall shakes his head as he turns his attention back to the engine in front of him. Silence falls over them, then, as Harry hops up onto the trunk of Niall’s care. He doesn’t usually like to be watched while he works, as it’s always made him a bit anxious and uncomfortable – but Harry’s presence is difference. It’s a comfort. It’s natural. It’s like he’s there, and Niall knows he’s there, but it’s so natural and calming that it’s as though Harry is just…a part of him. (Not that he’d ever tell Harry that, of course.)_

_“We should go on a road trip when this is all done,” Harry says suddenly._

_Niall snorts. “Because that’ll go over real well…”_

_“I meant just the two of us.”_

_The blond blinks, and swallows hard around the sudden lump in his throat. “Oh… Not that that’s a great idea either.” He glances over his shoulder once more for Harry’s reaction._

_Harry shrugs, tilts his head. “I think it could be.”_

_Niall licks his lips as he turns back, a final time, to face the car. “One thing at a time, yeah?”_

++

Niall finishes his first oil change in years. He wipes his hands on the rag he’d thrown over his shoulder earlier, just as Bobby finishes greasing the last of the van’s door hinges.

“Thought you said you haven’t worked on cars in years,” Bobby hums. “You’re not so rusty after all, are you?”

Niall grins with a shrug of his shoulders. “Guess it’s like riding a bike.”

Bobby smiles back as he claps his son’s shoulders with both hands.

Niall remembers being a kid, and his dad doing the same thing every time Niall finished a task by himself. Bobby was always really proud of him, always said that Niall had it in him to _‘take over for his old man someday’_. Sometimes he wonders what his life would look like if he’d stayed, if he’d have started working with Bobby full-time, if he and… And then he trails off, and forces himself to think about something else because ‘what ifs’ make him feel sick.

“I reckon the student has surpassed the teacher, old man,” a voice says behind them.

Bobby scoffs as Niall looks up, gaze landing on Richard as he walks between both the car Niall just finished working on, and the one still waiting to be serviced. “Who are you calling an old man, ya old geezer?”

Richard snorts. “I’m just saying. Kid finished that oil change quicker than you can. So either he’s just better than you, or you’re getting slow in your old age.”

Niall only half listens as the two of them continue to bicker back and forth, because the other half of his attention is focused on the car parked – with a person sitting inside – across the street. He’d noticed the car, with the same person inside, a little over an hour; at the time, he’d just assumed that they’d stopped to eat, given the fact that there’s the coffee shop right next to them, but now… As he takes a longer look at the car, he’s not so sure. The car looks an awful lot like an undercover police car.

He mutters to his father that he’ll be right back, as he makes his way out of the garage, down the driveway, and across the street – where the man inside the car is avidly pretending not to notice him. Niall notices him, though. And he recognizes him, now that he’s closer, as one of the blokes he’d seen at the cop shop.

He taps a knuckle against the driver’s side window when he reaches the car, waits for the man to roll it down. The man only does so reluctantly. “That detective sent you, didn’t he?” Niall demands. The man blinks, and he doesn’t answer, but Niall takes his silence, and the badge, only just visible, on his belt, as confirmation. “Well when you get back to the station, tell him he’s wasting his time. I grew up in an auto shop, I know my way around cars, and I’d have made a much cleaner cut on the brake line of Malik’s car than the person who actually cut it.”

He walks away before the undercover officer can respond; wouldn’t turn around even if the officer did.

“Everything okay?” Bobby asks, brows furrowed together in confusion as Niall walks back into the garage.

“Yeah,” Niall breathes, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. He feels a bit sick to his stomach though. “Yeah, I was just making sure he wasn’t having any car trouble. He’s fine.”

“Would be the perfect place to have car trouble though, I suppose.”

Niall nods, tells Bobby that he has to use the loo before disappearing quickly. His legs are shaking when he reaches the one person washroom, and he has to lean his back against the wall once he’s inside to keep from collapsing as he pulls his phone out of the back pocket of his trouser. He finds Harry’s name with shaky thumbs.

 _Cops are following me…_ , he types. _Be on the lookout just in case._

X

Niall hears him before he sees him, and his stomach plummets as his kicks off his shoes in the hallway. Bobby is still out talking to the neighbours, so Niall leaves the door open even as he walks down the hallway and into the living room – which is where he finally sees him, sitting on the floor with Theo, playing with a Tonka truck Niall has never seen before. To Niall’s disappointment, Harry looks really good those jeans he’s got hugging his hips and painting his thighs; Harry looks even better with that smile plastered across his lips that puts that dimple in his cheek, as Theo uses Harry’s thighs as a road.

“Uncle Nile!” Theo shouts upon catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye. “Look at what Harry bought me!”

“Wow,” Niall says, eyes wide as he plasters a smile to his own lips. “Did you thank him?”

“He did,” Harry confirms. “Well-mannered nephew you’ve got here.”

“Good. Can I speak to you in the kitchen?”

“Can I come?” Theo asks, pushing himself to his feet.

“Not right now, bud,” Niall says gently. He ruffles Theo’s blond hair before walking into the kitchen, Harry in tow. He whirls around the second they’re alone, folds his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here?” he demands.

Harry’s brow furrows in confusion. “I wanted to check in, make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “The cops are following me because they think I’m a suspect in the murder of one of my best friends, of course I’m not okay. And you’re not helping, by the way.”

Harry frowns, visibly hurt – and Niall has to physically bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from apologizing. “I- I’m _trying_ to help, Niall. I-“

“Well, you’re not,” Niall repeats. “So just- Go home, Harry. Go home to your fiancé.” _Before we make the same mistakes_ , goes unsaid, but it sits in the room like an elephant.

As if on cue, Bobby walks in. He claps Harry on the back, none the wiser. “I forgot you were engaged, Harry,” he says, and he opens the fridge. He pulls out a beer for himself, and then two others. Niall takes one, but Harry declines politely. “How long has it been?”

Harry smiles at Bobby. “Six months,” he says, pointedly ignoring Niall’s gaze.

Niall finds himself doing the math in his head. Six months. Harry has been engaged for six months. And six months ago is when Harry stopped calling him.

“Do you have a date set for the wedding yet?”

This time Harry does glance at Niall, but only for a second – and Niall wishes the ground would just swallow him whole. “Not yet,” Harry replies. “We’re thinking next spring though.”

Niall walks out. He can’t be there. He can’t stand there and listen to them talk about engagements or about weddings – or about anything else, really. It’s bad enough knowing about it; it _hurts_ enough knowing about it. Instead, he joins Theo in the living room, watches as the toddler runs around the room and pretends that the Tonka truck has been turned into a spaceship. ( _If only life was still that…simple_ , he thinks.)

Bobby and Harry come into the living room a couple of minutes later, as Harry’s about to head out – but then Greg comes in through the garage door and asks if anyone has seen Niall’s pipe cutter. Niall explains that it should be where it always is, hanging on the wall along with his other tools above the workbench, unless Bobby moved it, which Bobby hasn’t, but Greg insists it isn’t there.

Niall catches a glimpse of the worry that’s settled into the sharp lines of Harry’s jaw as he follows both Greg and Bobby out into the garage. His stomach churns when he realizes that Greg is right. The pipe cutter isn’t there. It isn’t anywhere.

“It must have just been misplaced at some point, it’ll turn up,” Bobby says, as digs around in his own toolbox for his.

Niall looks over Bobby’s shoulder, and his heart skips a beat when he catches Harry’s gaze because he knows that Harry is thinking the same thing he is.

Zayn’s brakes were cut and tampered with.

And Niall’s pipe cutter is missing.


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What happened after the fight – or, non-fight with Zayn?”
> 
> ”I…I don’t know,” the brunet admits.
> 
> “Then how could you possibly know that you didn’t get violent with him? Or that you didn’t tamper with his brakes?”
> 
> “Because I wouldn’t do that.”
> 
> Winston hums. “But is it possible?”
> 
> Niall doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to say that yes, he supposes that it is possible. But, well, he supposes that it is possible.
> 
> Winston must take his silence as a confirmation, because then he goes on to ask, “And is it also possible that your recent violent streak could be due to the guilt you feel for, possibly, killing your best friend.”
> 
> “I have a lot of guilt, Mr. Winston, but not because I killed my best friend. I didn’t kill Zayn.”
> 
> “Can you say that under oath?”
> 
> Niall’s jaw tenses, as he bites the inside of his cheek. The thing is, Winston is right. He can’t really say it under oath, can he?

_Harry pounces on him the minute he opens the door. He pulls Niall inside by the lapels of Niall’s spring jacket and then promptly pushes Niall against the door as he closes it. He kisses Niall gently, at first, as he pushes the fabric of Niall’s coat off his shoulders until the offending article lands on the floor – and then deepens it, and his lips feel bruising against Niall’s, which the blond thinks is going to end up being both a blessing and a curse once everything is said and done._

_Niall lets him have it – lets himself have it – until they reach the living room, where Harry tries to pull him onto the couch. He struggles a bit to pull away, because Harry is anxious and needy and horny, and Niall’s beginning to think that maybe he should have been that asshole that does it over the phone. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than this, and he hasn’t even had to see Harry’s face yet._

_“Stop,” Niall murmurs, as he ducks out of Harry’s grip. Only that only prompts Harry to go for Niall’s belt buckle. “Harry- Stop.” He reaches for Harry’s hands, pries them away from his belt, and then takes several steps back as he pushes his hands into the front pockets of his trousers._

_Harry blinks, taken aback. A flicker of concern flashes in his eyes as he frowns, sits up, and stares at Niall. “W-What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”_

_“No, no,” Niall says softly, shakes his head. “I just- We can’t keep doing this, Harry.”_

_“Niall, what are you-“_

_“_ I _can’t keep doing this. Not anymore.”_

_Harry’s brow furrows as he pushes himself to his feet. “Are you… Are you breaking up with me?”_

_Niall shrugs. “To be fair, we aren’t even really together-“_

_“Are you breaking up with me?” Harry asks again. This time, though, his voice is more demanding than desperate._

_“Yes,” the blond whispers._

_“Why?”_

_“Why?” Niall scoffs. “Did you really just ask me_ why _, Harry?”_

_“I mean, I know, I just- Why?” Harry stutter, his voice shaking. He takes a step towards Niall, and frowns, takes a deep breath, when Niall steps back. “Why now?”_

_Niall sighs. He closes his eyes, shakes his head – and when he opens his eyes again, Harry’s still staring back at him, beautiful as ever, and as sad as Niall has never wanted to see him again. “Because this is- This isn’t going to work. And what the hell is the point, anyway?”_

_“Niall-“_

_“You’re with Zayn. Or, at least, you’re supposed to be – and soon you’re gonna be going off to Uni with him, and then… And then who knows, Harry? We can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep lying, and going behind his back. This is never gonna be real, and I can’t- I just can’t, Haz.”_

_Harry licks his lips. “What if it could be real?”_

_“It can’t be.”_

_“What-“_

_“Zayn wants to ask you to move in with him,” the blond says suddenly, and judging by the look on Harry’s face, he’d been right to assume that Zayn hadn’t talked to him about it yet. “Zayn wants to_ move in with you _, that’s how much he wants you- And I can’t stand in the way of that. I can’t be in his way, not anymore.”_

 _“Well what do_ you _want?” Harry asks softly._

_Niall shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”_

_“What do you want, Niall?”_

_“I want us to stop pretending like this is going anywhere. I want us to stop pretending like any of this means anything.”_

_“But Niall-“_

_“And I want you and Zayn to be happy.”_

_Silence falls between them – in which Harry looks like he’s torn between fighting and fleeing, even as he turns so that his back is facing Niall. And so is Niall. He has half a mind to just say ‘fuck everything’, and walk into Harry’s arms, and kiss him and apologize and tell him that what he really wants is for Harry to be with him, to_ choose him _. But he can’t do that. Not now. Not to Zayn. Not even to Harry._

_“I’m gonna…” Niall trails off as he makes to move towards the front hall. Harry doesn’t move. Instead, the brunet stays facing the opposite direction, his arms crossed over his chest – and Niall isn’t an idiot, he knows that Harry is crying. It takes everything he has not to cross the room and gather his best friend – his lover, his ex-lover – in his arms. It takes every ounce of courage to remain weak. “You’re gonna be happy, Harry. Remember that.”_

_Niall leaves quickly, doesn’t even bother to put his jacket back on before he slips out the front door. His knees feel weak and his stomach feels heavy and his heart literally feels like it’s breaking apart in his chest – but he won’t break down now, he can’t. Not in Harry’s driveway. Not where all Harry would have to do is look outside to see that Niall isn’t as strong as he pretends to be._

_Breaking down a block away, however, is a completely different story._

++

He wakes up thinking about his missing pipe cutter. He takes a shower thinking about his missing pipe cutter. Gets dressed, makes breakfast for himself, Theo, and Greg thinking about his missing pipe cutter.

Hanging out with Theo, however, proves to be a pretty great distraction. He might only be three years old, but he’s a chatty little human being who knows exactly how to- A) Talk anybody’s ear off, and B) Become your whole entire focus until it feels like, suddenly, this small, three-year-old child is the most important thing in your life.

Theo Horan really is this little ball of sunshine within Niall’s otherwise dark, lonely world. And Niall couldn’t be more grateful that a thing like him exists.

“You’ve done well with him so far,” Niall says as he watches Theo run around the backyard with his miniature kite flying only a couple of feet above him.

“You think so?” Greg asks, smiling fondly. His gaze flickers for less than a minute, lands on Niall before flittering back to watch his son.

Niall nods. “He’s the happiest kid. And it can only because of you and Denise.”

“And his grandparents,” Greg adds.

Niall hums. “Dad would never let you live it down if you didn’t him give him some sort of credit.”

Greg laughs. “You have no idea.”

Silence falls between them, but only for a short minute – because then Theo is shouting for them to watch him. So they do. And Niall finds himself remembering what it was like to be a kid; how easy and care-free it was. Kids don’t worry about drama. They don’t worry about boys or girls, or boyfriends or girlfriends, or being in love with your best friend who’s dating your other best friend, or feeling like a shitty best friend for sleeping with your best friend’s boyfriend over and over and over. Or death – kids don’t worry about death, because it’s not even a thing that they can truly comprehend, and-

“Do you think about having kids?”

Niall blinks, tears his gaze away from where his nephew has thrown himself onto the ground to simply just watch the kite fly above him to look at his brother. “I’d need a partner for that.”

“You ever think about settling down, then?” Greg asks.

 _I used to_ , Niall wants to say, but probably shouldn’t. Because then he’d have to explain. Instead, he sighs, folds his arms across his chest and mutters, “Sometimes. But that would require me to have my life a little more put together, which I don’t – in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Niall-“

“Look- I’m not like you, okay? I’m not like you, or dad, or Harry-“ He cuts himself off the second Harry’s name leave his mouth, bites at the inside of his cheek.

“Harry moving on is healthy,” Greg says softly. “You not moving on isn’t.”

“Great,” Niall mutters, despite the fact that that isn’t how he meant it. But of course, he can’t tell Greg that. He can’t tell Greg that it’s not just about Harry moving on from Zayn. “That’s good to know. I’m going inside.”

“Niall-“

“Just- Stop, Greg. I’ve heard enough.”

His chest feels heavy, as he closes the door behind him. And less than 10 minutes later, within the solitude of his childhood bedroom, Niall starts thinking about his pipe cutter – and then he can’t stop.

X

He never misplaces anything, is the thing. Ever. He’s always been impeccably organized. Everything he owns has a home, a spot where they belong. It’s the mild bit of OCD in him, is what that is, and for that reason, he knows that he didn’t just misplace something. Someone else might have, he supposes – but Bobby is really the only other person that would have used it, and he has one of his own anyway.

Which brings him back to the fact that Niall never misplaces anything. Ever.

It makes him wonder, a bit, if maybe Winston – and Corden, but mostly Winston – is right. Maybe he did have something to do with Zayn’s accident. Maybe, after Zayn had confronted him and yelled terrible things at him, Niall had somehow been the one to tamper with the breaks in Zayn’s car, and maybe someone else had seen him. Maybe he was so mad and hurt and angry, maybe he wanted revenge, maybe he hadn’t really known what he was doing.

Maybe he really is the reason Zayn is dead – and maybe that’s why Niall has felt so consumedly guilty and broken. Maybe it’s his subconscious’ way of not letting him move on.

Thinking about it makes him feel sick. He knows deep down that he wouldn’t have done something like that, that he never would have tried to hurt Zayn _like that_ – but he also knows, first hand, that people do stupid and crazy things when they’re in love sometimes, and maybe it’s possible… Maybe it’s possible that Niall isn’t as innocent as he thinks he is.

That’s the thought that does it. So many thoughts have been whirling around his head for hours, especially as he’s lied alone in the confines of his bedroom – but that’s the thought that drags him out of bed. It’s the thought that leads him quietly down the stairs, and straight into his father’s liquor cabinet. He pulls out a bottle of whiskey, unscrews the cap, and downs a gulp.

He barely even flinches.

And then he takes another, because he just wants to forget.

X

He kills the engine when he arrives.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but the road is empty, except for his car, and the streets are quiet. It’s dark, apart from the surrounding streetlights. There’s one light post in particular, though, that has Niall’s attention. It’s the only one with a bouquet tied to it, to mark the spot where an accident took place; a vigil to honour a life that has been lost.

He climbs out of the car slowly, folds his arms across his chest after he closes the door. His stomach churns, but other than that he just feels numb. He walks slowly, stumbles around the front of the car to get closer. He hasn’t been _here_ since placing a flower in the grass around the base of the post, among other flowers and signs and stuffed animals for the first vigil after Zayn had passed away.

The flowers are beautiful – and he knows, through updates from his father, that Trisha replenishes them quite often. _To keep his memory alive._ They make his breath catch in his throat, makes him feel dizzier than the alcohol in his system does, the closer he gets. There’s a laminated picture of Zayn tied to the wrapping paper around the stems of the flowers that makes Niall’s heart clench, makes tears burn the backs of his eyes.

As if on cue, a car pulls up. A glance over his shoulder reveals an officer climbing out of a police car – and why isn’t Niall surprised?

“Horan, right?” The copper asks.

“One of, yes,” Niall mutters, as turns his head back around to face the light post.

“How much have you had to drink tonight?”

 _Not enough_ , Niall thinks. Certainly not enough to be dealing with what he knows is about to come.

X

Winston is there waiting for him, when the officer brings him in, which confirms Niall’s suspicion that the copper didn’t just happen to cross paths with him; the officer had probably followed him from his house.

The officer leads him towards the back of the station, straight into the interrogation room. The lights are too bright for his tired, dreary eyes, the chair is uncomfortable, and the table is cold beneath his bare hands. It’s not a great room – it’s actually a little bit intimidating, and Niall wonders if this is how this ends. He can see the headlines now; _Horan, prime suspect in murder case, arrested for DUI – could this prove his guilt?_

He isn’t even sitting for five minutes before Winston walks in, a beige folder in one hand and steaming mug in the other. “I’d like for you to take a look at this, please,” the detective says, dropping the folder on the table in front of him.

Niall stares at him silently, but doesn’t move. “Why?”

“Open it. See for yourself.”

The first thing Niall sees when he words his gaze, is the words scrawled across the top: _LAPD; Horan, Niall_. His stomach drops. He knows what it is.

“Fine, I’ll sum it up-“

“I know what’s in it,” Niall mutters, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Seven arrests within your first two years living in LA,” Winston says. “‘Bar fights’, public drunkenness, a couple of fines for vandalized property… You have a very recent history of getting drunk and then getting violent – and let’s just say, it doesn’t make you look good. Especially if you take into consideration that it’s only been ever since Zayn’s death. Funny, that.”

“I didn’t hurt Zayn.”

Winston raises an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t remember?”

“I didn’t hurt him,” Niall repeats. “I didn’t fight back.”

“But there was a fight.”

“I told you- He pushed me a few times, and he pinned me against the wall – but he was pissed. And I didn’t fight back. I-I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Niall licks his lips, shakes his head as he looks towards the small window up near the ceiling. “Because I do remember thinking that I deserved it. I was depressed, and I felt defeated, but I wasn’t angry at anybody but myself. I didn’t hurt him. And I was never violent.”

“Then why are you violent now – as recently as last year?”

Niall shrugs. “I guess now I am angry.”

“What happened after the fight – or, non-fight with Zayn?”

”I…I don’t know,” the brunet admits.

“Then how could you possibly know that you didn’t get violent with him? Or that you didn’t tamper with his brakes?”

“Because I wouldn’t do that.”

Winston hums. “But is it possible?”

Niall doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to say that yes, he supposes that it is possible. But, well, he supposes that it is possible.

Winston must take his silence as a confirmation, because then he goes on to ask, “And is it also possible that your recent violent streak could be due to the guilt you feel for, possibly, killing your best friend.”

“I have a lot of guilt, Mr. Winston, but not because I killed my best friend. I didn’t kill Zayn.”

“Can you say that under oath?”

Niall’s jaw tenses, as he bites the inside of his cheek. The thing is, Winston is right. He can’t really say it under oath, can he?

“Here’s what I think happened- I think that you couldn’t handle the thought of your boy, Harry, being with Zayn after all. I think that when he showed up angry, yelling at you for fucking his boyfriend you snapped. You hurt Zayn on purpose, because you wanted to get him out of the way so that you could have Harry all to yourself.”

“I didn’t-“

“I think you were in love with Harry since before he even started dating Zayn, right? But then Zayn swooped in before you had the chance; he stole Harry from you. So, first, you took him back by having an affair with him, and then you took him back by murdering Zayn.

“The question I have is: _why?_ Why not just, I dunno, ask Harry to run away with you? Surely that would have been better than going through the act of tampering with Zayn’s brakes in hopes that he would get in an accident, right? Unless…you weren’t sure that Harry would actually have left Zayn? Is that it? You couldn’t be sure that Harry would even leave Zayn, so you had to get him out of the way yourself – permanently. Only then it backfired.”

It takes everything Niall has not to get angry; not to slam his hands again against the table and scream that that’s not what happened – that even if Zayn didn’t deserve Harry, Niall would have never hurt him. Instead, he balls his hands into fists as if that’s going to contain his rage, and he rolls his eyes. “Are you actually going to charge me with anything?”

Winston smirks. “Tell you what. Instead of charging you for DUI, I’ll let you out on bail on the condition that you are not to leave the country until further notice. Deal?”

Niall sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “I have a job to get back to-“

“And I have a murder to solve. Surely you can stick around for a little while longer.”

++

_Zayn barges in the second Niall opens the door. He shoves Niall, screams at him that he’s an asshole and a whore; shoves him a second time and asks him what it was like fucking his boyfriend._

_Niall hears all of this – hears every word that leaves Zayn’s mouth – but it takes him a long minute to process exactly what Zayn is saying, and by then, Zayn has Niall pinned to the wall. He demands to know what it was like ‘fucking a bloke he knew was fucking someone else too’._

_Niall tries to calm him down, talks calmly and carefully places a hand on Zayn’s chest – which only makes Zayn angrier, and then they both topple over. There’s a struggle, at first, because Niall tries to get Zayn off of him – until there isn’t a struggle at all because Niall stops trying to take it._

_He apologizes, screams that he’s sorry, that he never meant for it happen, that he wishes he could take it back-_

_“That’s bullshit!” Zayn screams viciously. His eyes are dark, and his spits when he yells it in Niall’s face before he pushes himself off – but not before fisting his hands in the fabric of Niall’s jumper, and slamming him one more time against the floor. “That’s bullshit and we both know it, because we both know you’ve been in love with him for ages. Bet you felt victorious, huh? Bet you felt like you finally won him over, after all these years. Bet you seduced him, didn’t you?”_

_“I- I didn’t,” Niall murmurs. He sits up, pushes himself back until his back is against the wall in the hallway. “Zayn, I never-“_

_“Don’t you dare, Horan,” the brunet spits. “Don’t you dare say that you didn’t mean for it to happen – not when I know it’s the_ one thing _you always wanted.”_

++

“I honestly don’t know who’s more of an idiot – you, or that Winston fellow,” Harry mutters, although he stares straight ahead.

Niall can’t decide if he prefers snappy-angry Harry, or quiet-angry Harry. Harry was the first person Niall thought to call at 3:30 in the morning from the police department, although in hindsight he probably should have been the last.

“I mean- Honestly, Niall,” Harry snaps. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking, clearly-“

“Well no shit. Only an idiot would get behind the wheel of a car while he’s drunk after his best friend died the same way.”

Niall rolls his eyes as he continues to look out the passenger window. “He didn’t die because he was drunk, remember?”

“Niall-“

“Alright, fine. I’m an idiot.”

Harry sighs, glances over briefly at Niall before setting his gaze back on the road in front of him. “You’re not an idiot, you just-“

Niall shakes his head. “I’m an idiot. You know who isn’t an idiot though? Winston. He may be an asshole, but he’s not an idiot. Bail means that I can’t leave the country until I’ve been to court and paid whatever the fine is. It means I’m stuck here for a while, which might even buy them enough time to decide whether or not I’m guilty.”

“You’re not guilty.”

“Wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Niall mutters.

Harry rolls the car to a stop at the red light just around the block from Niall’s house. This time when he looks at Niall, he turns his whole body and places one hand on the back of Niall’s seat – and he stares until Niall drags his gaze away from the old house on the corner. “I am sure,” he whispers. “You’re not guilty.”

Niall isn’t drunk anymore. He’s not quite sober, but he isn’t drunk either; he’s mostly just tired. And hurt, and angry, and confused. But, more than anything, he just wants to go to bed.

“What are you gonna tell Bobby about his car?” Harry asks as the light turns green and he starts to drive again.

“Shit,” Niall mutters.

“I can swing by on my way to the studio to pick him up and take him to the lot.”

Niall shakes his head. “You don’t have to do that.”

Harry shrugs. “’s no use dragging your hungover arse out of bed just for him to have to bring you back home before he goes to the shop.”

“He’d probably prefer that. He’d call it punishment, or something.”

“I’ll take care of it, then.”

Niall bites the inside of his cheek as he rolls the back of his head against the seat to look at the bloke next to him. Here’s Niall, who hasn’t really, properly spoken to Harry in years and has been mostly pretty awful towards him since he got back – and then there’s Harry, who gets out of bed at 3 o’clock in the morning because he believes in Niall. “Thank you,” he whispers.

He thinks they both know that Niall owes him way more than just a ‘thank you’.

X

“Can I come in?” Harry asks softly, after pulling into the driveway.

Niall looks at him briefly and then looks ahead, towards his front door. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“That’s not what I’m asking for.”

“Harry,” Niall sighs.

“Not- Not for anything in particular,” Harry whispers. He shuts off the engine, and then rests the back of his head against the seat, like he already knows that Niall is going to give in. “I just- I miss you, and I know you’re feeling like a wreck, and I am too-“

“Okay.”

A small, barely there smile tugs at Harry’s lips. “Yeah?”

Niall shrugs. “Maybe you can help me figure out what I did with my pipe cutter.”


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Go, Harry. Go back to your fiancé, go back to your perfect life-”
> 
> Bobby stands too, then, and the sudden movement nearly knocks over his glass of water as his knee hits the bottom of the table. “Niall James Horan!”
> 
> “Perfect?” Harry scoffs, rolling his eyes as he pushes himself slowly to his feet. He narrows his gaze. “You think my life is perfect?”
> 
> “Seems like it to me,” Niall mutters.
> 
> “Why? Because I moved on? Do you want to know why I moved on? Because if I didn’t, then it would have destroyed me! I lost Zayn, which was fucking torture, and I then lost you – and somehow…that just made everything feel worse. I moved on because I had to. I didn’t have a choice; you wouldn’t even give me one.”
> 
> Niall closes his eyes. “Stop-“
> 
> “You just- You just left. You packed your bags, and you left, and you never looked back-“
> 
> “I did look back,” Niall snaps. “I looked back every day. Every time you called, I wanted to crawl through phone, and every time I heard your voice, I wanted to come home.”
> 
> “Then why didn’t you?” Harry demands. There’s a desperate tone to his voice, and Niall hates it.

_He wakes up slowly. Keeps his eyes closed, and breathes in the subtle scent of Harry’s coconut shampoo through his nose as he buries his face in the dark curls at the back of Harry’s neck. Harry’s skin is cold, and so Niall pulls him closer, holds him tighter, nuzzles his nose against Harry’s skin. Harry doesn’t move, doesn’t even so much as stir in his sleep._

_“Harry,” Niall whispers, pressing his warm lips against the nape of Harry’s neck. “Haz, you’re freezing.” His whisper goes unanswered, so he pulls back slightly, and reaches one arm up to card a hand through his hair. “Harry,” he murmurs, leaning forward to press his lips against Harry’s shoulder. “Babe, wake up. Harry.”_

_The brunette remains unresponsive, so Niall pushes himself up. His heart feels like it’s in his throat, for some reason, and his pulse quickens as he pulls gently on Harry’s shoulder._

_For a short, fraction of a second he sees Zayn, all bruised and battered with a gash in his forehead and a busted lip and dark circles under his eyes, his hair wet with blood. Niall screams, scrambles to get away from him- And a fraction of a second later, he sees Harry, and Harry’s face is all bruised and battered too, and there’s a gash in his forehead like Zayn’s, and his bottom lip is split open, and he’s bleeding into his hair. He feels sick, and his chest feels heavy; he feels like he can’t breathe, like all the air has been sucked out of room, and yet it’s like he’s two seconds away from hyperventilating._

_He isn’t sure if he wants to run away, or move forward – but he wants to hold Harry more than anything, so he reaches forward, and traces the tips of his fingers over Harry’s black and purple cheek. “Haz,” he whimpers. A tear trickles down his own cheek, and he sniffs as he brushes his other hand over Harry’s hair. He can feel the blood against his fingers, can see it staining his skin. “Harry, please, don’t-“_

**

He wakes up quickly, bolts straight up, eyes wide, heart racing. His skin is covered, as always, in a thin layer of sweat.

Harry wakes up too. He pushes himself upright, tired and bleary eyed, as he runs a hand through his hair. “Niall, hey,” he whispers, reaching out to run a hand over Niall’s back – but Niall ducks quickly out of the way. He blinks up at Niall, watches as he scrambles to get out of the bed.

Niall rubs his hands over his face, and only then does he realize he’d been crying. He wipes his face, dries his eyes with the heels of his hands, and then looks at Harry, who’s looking back at him, and he’s relieved by what he sees – or, rather, what he doesn’t see. Harry looks just fine. There are no injuries, there’s no blood – there’s just Harry. Harry, who is alive and well, or at least as well as can be. A glance at the clock radio on the bedside table next to Harry tells him it’s nearly 7 o’clock, which means Bobby will be awake shortly, which means that Niall will have to explain what happened last night fairly soon so going back to bed would be relatively pointless now. (Even if he does suddenly have a killer headache. Even if Harry wasn’t currently sitting in Niall’s bed without a shirt on.)

“I have to take a shower,” he mutters. He grabs a clean pair of boxers and a pair of sweatpants before he leaves the room. He doesn’t bother to glance back at Harry, doesn’t even bother to explain what just happened. Harry doesn’t need to know about his nightmares. And he most certainly doesn’t need to know that he, like Zayn, always winds up dead in them.

X

Harry’s on the phone when Niall walks back into the bedroom. He’s wearing a shirt now – the same one from yesterday, and he has his back to the door as he looks out Niall’s bedroom window and talks in a hushed voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he murmurs. “We just- Fell asleep watching a movie.”

Niall rolls his eyes, goes about grabbing a clean shirt out of his suitcase. He ignores the fact that Harry looks at him only briefly before looking away.

“Yeah, I’ll see you tonight. Okay, you too… Bye.”

Niall pulls an old, plain black t-shirt on over his head, and then sits on the edge of his bed to put on his socks. “Lying to her already, huh?” he asks casually, albeit pettily.

Harry sighs. “I couldn’t exactly tell her that I had to pick you up you up from the police station and then that we fell asleep trying to solve a murder case.”

“Why not?” Niall hums, shrugs his shoulders. “It’s not like the whole town isn’t going to know the truth in a matter of days once the papers get a hold of it anyway. Everyone is bound to find out that the mechanic’s son is a suspect for tampering with the brakes in his best friend’s car, which lead to his death. Everyone’s also going to find out why I’m a suspect, which is because of the affair I’d been having with you. You might want to break the news to her gently, before she finds out from someone else.”

“I will,” Harry says softly. “Just… Later. Tonight.”

Niall nods silently, not that he cares either way. Harry can tell her, or Harry can not tell her. Niall doesn’t care. He doesn’t.

“Your dad came in while you were taking a shower,” Harry tells him a moment later.

Niall’s breath gets caught in his throat for a few seconds. “Oh?”

“I told him what happened with his car, and that I would take him to get it. He said he’ll talk to you about what happened later.”

Niall shakes his head. “You should go home and get changed or something. I’ll take him to get it.”

“I took a sick day.”

The shorter lad blinks as he pushes himself to his feet. “Harry-“

Harry scoffs, folds his arms over his chest. “I’m 22 years old, Niall. If I want to take a sick day, I’m going to take a sick day.”

“For what purpose? If you’re afraid I’m going to disappear again, then don’t be. I literally am not allowed to leave the country. And if it’s because you want to help me, then you’re wasting your time considering we’ve tried to brainstorm, if that’s what we’re still calling it, and it didn’t get us anywhere. The only thing we’ve been able to conclude, is the fact that my pipe cutter – a tool someone could use to cut brake wires – is missing, which-“

“Doesn’t mean that you did it.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “It’s not looking good for me, Harry. Admit it.”

Harry sighs, “Can we at least get something to eat before you start talking like that?”

“Go home, Harry. Or go to work. Or-“

“Do you think your dad has enough ingredients to make eggy bread?” Harry asks, effectively ignoring him, as he walks towards the exit and out into the hallway. “I haven’t had that in ages.”

Niall has half a mind to kick him out. But he doesn’t.

X

Winston groans, pinches the bridge of his nose as he leans back in the chair at his desk. He and Corden have been going over – and over – the statements all morning. And Winston, having come in in the middle of the night to talk to Horan, is already on his third cup of instant coffee.

“So, Horan maintains his innocence,” Winston mutters, “despite not remembering everything that happened; Styles maintains his own innocence, as well as Horan’s, despite not even being there; Payne and Tomlinson both claim that they didn’t have knowledge of the affair between Horan and Styles until recently, and neither one of them believes that either of the other two would have ever intentionally tried to hurt Malik.”

Corden nods, taps the end of is pen against his notepad. “Sounds about right.”

“Did forensics come back with anything?”

“Not yet.”

Winston sighs. “So we have no idea what tool, specifically, could have been used to tamper with the breaks.”

“Apart from the obvious tools, no.”

The brunet pushes himself to his feet, grabs his jacket off the back his chair with one hand and his coffee cup in the other. “Then I’m getting a warrant for anything that could cut through a brake line in a car, and I’m going to ask the judge to make the warrant as broad as possible. When we get it, I want to hit Horan’s dad’s house first.”

“While you do that, I’m gonna call the school and talk to the principal,” Corden says as he reaches for his phone. “See if there’s anything he can tell us about Malik’s peers.”

X

“What did you tell them?” Niall asks, watching with a shoulder against the wall by the staircase as Harry pulls his boots out of the closet in the front hall. “Winston and Cordon?”

It’s going on 3:30 in the afternoon. Harry’s been around all day – which was simultaneously weird, and comforting. They watched golf for the majority of the day, sat in silence for a lot of it. Niall had stopped thinking about kicking him out halfway through eating the breakfast that Harry picked up on his way back from dropping Bobby off at the impound lot because, well, as much as Niall has been pretending otherwise, he sort of…didn’t want to be alone. Not now. Not after what happened last night.

Harry shrugs, pushes one foot into a boot. “I told them the truth,” he says softly. “Told them that the affair just sort of happened, and then neither us could stop – that neither of us wanted to. I said that we were selfish and foolish, that we just…wanted what we wanted. Said that I hadn’t been in love with you the way you were with me, but that I did fall in love with you – so much so that I had wanted to tell Zayn about it. I told them I had still loved Zayn, I just…wasn’t in love with him anymore – and that I couldn’t even be sure that I had ever actually been in love with him. I said that the accident was hard on all of us, including you because it’s not like you hated him, you just…loved me.

“And then I said that you loved Zayn like a brother, despite everything, and that that’s partly why you’ve been having a hard time dealing with it. I said that you never would have hurt him, and that there isn’t a single part of me that thinks that you could have.”

Niall sighs, folding his arms over his chest. “But what if I did, Harry?”

“Niall-“

“No, seriously- What if I did hurt him?” He pushes himself away from the wall, lets his arms drop down to his sides. “What if I did cut the brakes? What if I hated him enough that night that I took an opportunity when I had it.”

“You didn’t,” Harry says firmly.

“You don’t know that.”

Harry crosses the short distance between them, raises his hands as if to cup Niall’s jaw but then stops himself when Niall ducks his head. So, instead, he shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “No, but I know you. Or, I knew you back then – and I know that you would never have done something like that. Things were complicated and messy and hard, yes, but you’re not… You aren’t a murderer, Niall. I wish you wouldn’t doubt yourself.”

“I wish you wouldn’t put so much confidence in me.”

“Yeah, well, one of us has to,” Harry mutters with a shrug of his shoulders.

++

_“What’s this?”_

_Niall glances back over his shoulder, and his gaze widens – and his stomach plummets – when he sees the large, white envelope Harry’s holding next to his desk. He’d forgotten to put it away. He’d forgotten to stash it inside the top drawer of his desk before Harry came over, and now Harry has found it, and- Shit. “Nothing,” he mutters, moving forward quickly. “It’s nothing.”_

_“Hang on- This is from UCLA,” Harry murmurs. “Niall-“_

_“Haz, it’s nothing,” Niall says. He reaches for the envelope, tries to snatch it from Harry’s fingers, but to no avail. Harry is taller than him and, therefore, lifts it high above Niall’s head. “Harry.”_

_“You didn’t even open it. Why didn’t you open it?”_

_Niall sighs. “Harry. Haz, just-“_

_“I’ll give it back, but only if you open it.”_

_“Fine, I’ll open it.”_

_“In front of me. I want to be here when you get accepted.”_

_Niall rolls his eyes; hates how his throat runs dry, and how the butterflies in his stomach make him feel sick. “Fine,” he whispers._

_Harry hands him the envelope, then, and the blond immediately regrets to agreeing to Harry’s terms. Why the bloody hell can’t he say a simple ‘No’ –_ a two letter word _– to Harry Styles? Why is it so damn hard to reject him?_

_He takes a deep breath, and opens the envelope with shaky fingers. He’s nervous. He’s beyond nervous, really, he’s- Terrified. He pulls the paper out slowly, and his heart skips a beat when he sees the letterhead at the top of the page. He reads it slowly, carefully, his gaze scanning over every straight line and every curve of every letter, until-_

‘You’ve been accepted’ _becomes the only words that he sees. Three words have never made him feel quite this dizzy before._

_“What does it say?” Harry urges softly. Niall doesn’t even get a chance to think about responding before Harry plucks the letter out from between Niall’s fingers. The blond makes to grab it back, but it’s too late – because then Harry’s whole face lights up; his eyebrows shoot up into the middle of his forehead, his eyes widen, and his mouth falls open in a silent gasp as lifts his gaze to look at Niall. “You got in!”_

_Niall blinks, taken aback._

_Harry wraps him up in a hug, then. His arms hold Niall tight around his shoulders as he tucks his face into the crook of Niall’s neck. “I knew you’d get in,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against Niall’s skin. “Knew they’d never even think about refusing you. You’re too valuable.”_

_It’s like Niall’s heart skips a beat before it lodges itself within the confines of his throat, prevents him from uttering an actual ‘thank you’ – as if he could find his voice at the moment anyway. So instead of saying it, he hopes that the way he squeezes his arms around Harry’s waist gets the point across._

_Thank you for believing in me. (Especially when I didn’t.)_

++

Niall’s hand is on the doorknob, and Harry’s hands are in the front pockets of his trousers when the front door swings open and a tiny human barrels into the front hall.

“Uncle Nile, I’m home!” the toddler yells at the top of his voice

“Hey, bud-“

“HARREH!” The little boy throws himself against Harry’s legs, then, and Niall blinks in shock. “Why are you here, Harreh?”

“I was just hanging out with your Uncle Niall.”

“He was just leaving.”

Denise walks in a moment later, “Oh, hey, Harry.”

“Mummy, can Harreh stay?”

“For dinner? Sure, if he wants to.”

“He was just leaving,” Niall says again.

Harry shrugs, “I can stay a little bit longer, at least. I’ll just call Taylor and tell her I’ll be a little bit late.”

“Harry-“

“Yes!” Theo shouts gleefully. “You and Uncle Nile can play with me!”

Niall sighs; he knows he’s already lost. He’ll be stuck with Harry for another couple of hours, at least.

X

Harry ends up staying for dinner, of course. And then for dessert.

Niall’s whole family loves Harry, is the thing. They adore him. They talk and laugh with him; they make jokes and laugh at Harry’s; they remember and they reminisce – and Niall sort of feels sick because of it, if he’s being honest. He hates how easy it seems for all of them, Harry included. He hates how natural it seems for everyone to just fall into place around the dinner table, as though it hasn’t been over four years. It shouldn’t still feel natural. Not anymore.

But he tolerates it. he tolerates everything – from the way Theo looks between him and Harry like he’s the happiest little boy in the world, to the way Harry looks at him and smiles and tilts his head as if to say, _‘See? This isn’t the end of the world.’_ And he’s right, Niall supposes, it doesn’t feel like the end of the world.

And then it does. Bobby says that it feels like old times – and it’s like Niall’s head spins because this isn’t like old times at all.

He’s tried. He’s tried to pretend like everything is normal – all day he’s tried to keep everything from unraveling, including his non-existent relationship with Harry. And now he can’t, not anymore.

He stands abruptly, so much so that the feet of his chair scrape loudly against the floor as pushes it back. “I can’t do this anymore,” he mutters, as everyone stares. His gaze, however, remains on Harry. “You need to go.”

“Niall!” Bobby scolds.

Niall ignores his father, holds Harry’s gaze. “Go, Harry. Go back to your fiancé, go back to your perfect life-”

Bobby stands too, then, and the sudden movement nearly knocks over his glass of water as his knee hits the bottom of the table. “Niall James Horan!”

“Perfect?” Harry scoffs, rolling his eyes as he pushes himself slowly to his feet. He narrows his gaze. “You think my life is perfect?”

“Seems like it to me,” Niall mutters.

“Why? Because I moved on? Do you want to know why I moved on? Because if I didn’t, then it would have destroyed me! I lost Zayn, which was fucking torture, and I then lost you – and somehow…that just made everything feel worse. I moved on because I had to. I didn’t have a choice; you wouldn’t even give me one.”

Niall closes his eyes. “Stop-“

“You just- You just left. You packed your bags, and you left, and you never looked back-“

“I did look back,” Niall snaps. “I looked back every day. Every time you called, I wanted to crawl through phone, and every time I heard your voice, I wanted to come home.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Harry demands. There’s a desperate tone to his voice, and Niall hates it.

“Because I was in school, for one,” Niall sighs, “just trying to…feel alive and have something to live for. And because I couldn’t, Harry. Not after everything that happened.”

“Niall-“

“Can we not do this here?” he begs. He knows where this conversation is going, knows it’s inevitable, but-

“You’re the one that said that I needed to not keep secrets from Taylor- Maybe you need to not keep secrets from your family,” Harry points out, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.

Niall swallows, hard, “Alright. Fine.” He faces his family, takes a breath and swallows hard around the lump that has formed in his throat. He’d been hoping to avoid this for as long as possible; at least until he knew for sure whether or not the papers had gotten a hold of any information apart from the fact that the police were following a couple of leads. But, as much as he hates to admit it, Harry does have a point.

“Harry and I had an affair,” he says, pointedly avoiding Bobby’s red hot gaze. “It lasted for about 10 months, it’s why Zayn is dead, and it’s why I haven’t come back home – because I’ve felt so fucking guilty about it. It’s also why I’m the a person of interest in Zayn’s murder.”

“Zayn isn’t dead because we had an affair, Niall,” Harry sighs. “And clearly he isn’t dead just because he was drunk; someone murdered him.”

“Yeah- And it might have been me, so-“

“It wasn’t you, stop saying that!”

“Oi- Hang on,” Bobby says, lifting his arm up as if to draw silence. (It works.) He looks between both of them once, twice, three times – before his gaze settles solely on his son. “You two had an affair?”

Niall nods.

“During school?”

“Yes,” Niall whispers.

“Behind Zayn’s back?”

“Yeah.”

Bobby pinches the bridge of his nose, and his brows furrow in confusion. “If Zayn didn’t know, then how is that the reason he’s dead? And why are you a person of interest?”

Niall licks his lips. “I’m the last person that saw him alive,” he admits. “Zayn found out about it and he confronted me. The detectives think that I did it out of jealousy because I wanted Harry for myself, even though we’d stopped seeing each other a couple of months before the accident.”

“What do you mean that it might have been you?” Greg asks.

Niall glances down at the end of the table, where Greg is sitting with Theo in his lap and Denise’s hand on his shoulder. He shrugs. “I don’t remember much of what happened when he came to confront me. The detectives think that I slipped out into the garage and tampered with the brakes on Zayn’s car and, for all we know, they could be right.”

“They’re not right,” Harry says firmly. “You didn’t do it.”

As if on cue, the doorbell rings and it saves Niall from having to respond. Greg gets up to answer it, whilst Denise pulls an upset Theo into her lap to soothe his whimpers. Liam walks into the dining room less than a minute later, with Greg behind him. His hair is damp, there’s sweat rolling down the sides of his face and he’s wearing workout gear. He looks a bit pale for someone who’s been working out, though.

Niall’s heart sinks as his gaze lands on the thing in Liam’s hand, hanging down by his side. “Payno…”

“I, um- Sorry to interrupt, but…I found this in the woods…” Liam lifts his arm – and Niall knows what it is without even really having to see it.

It’s his missing pipe cutter.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Or it means that I did it,” Niall mutters, cuts him off.
> 
> Harry sighs, “Niall-“
> 
> “Stop it- Stop telling me I didn’t do it, when you don’t have a damn clue,” Niall hisses. He wants to shout, wants to scream, wants to yell and cry. He just…doesn’t have the energy. “Stop throwing your confidence in me around like you aren’t wondering, at least a little bit, whether or not I did it. Stop ignoring the facts, Harry.”
> 
> “N-Niall,” Harry whispers; blinks, taken aback.
> 
> “I was drunk,” Niall scoffs. He shoves both hands into the front pockets of his jeans because, if nothing else, it’ll keep him from chewing them down to the bone. “I don’t remember him leaving. I don’t remember much of anything that happened after he showed up until you woke me up. I had the motive. I had the means, and the opportunity. I even had the fucking tool. And then the tool went missing, apparently, and now Liam’s found it in the woods – and that’s… That’s pretty fucking damning. Everything points to me, Harry.”

_“You sure you don’t want to just work on cars with your dad?” Zayn asks. He’s sitting in his car with the windows down, his arms are folded across the length of the door. He’s watching Niall test the air pressure in his tires. “Would save money, going to school, considering you already know what you’re doing. And you’re good at it.”_

_Niall shrugs as he pushes himself to feet, wipes his hands on his thighs. “I thought about it. But this is just…something I do in my spare time, y’know?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Think me da’s a bit disappointed though – which is a bit backwards, if you ask me. He wants me to take over the family business one day, instead of making something else of meself.”_

_“Maybe he just wants you close, you know?” Zayn suggest softly. “I mean, the obvious choice – despite being accepted in university in London – is to go study in L.A., and maybe he just…doesn’t want to lose you to the famous people out in Hollywood.”_

_Niall smirks. “Maybe. Probably, actually.”_

_“Can’t say I disagree with him, even though I do think you should go to L.A.”_

_Niall snorts, shoves at his friend’s shoulder. “Says the bloke who’s gonna be a big time artist some day. Like- Picasso or something.”_

_Zayn rolls his eyes, “Maybe.”_

_“Definitely, mate,” Niall tells him._

_And he believes it. He believes that Zayn has what it takes to be a great artist. He’s the most talented artist in town, having just recently been paid, based on talent alone, to paint a mural for a charity event for the children’s hospital. He’s going to be big one day, Niall’s sure of it._

_“So, this pipe thing you’ve got here,“ Zayn starts, holding the tool up for Niall to see. He’s been fiddling with it since he got here._

_“Pipe cutter.”_

_“Yeah, whatever,” Zayn shrugs. “Could I borrow it some time? I want to try and make a sculpture, or something. You’ll have it back before graduation, I promise.”_

_“Yeah, man,” Niall murmurs. “Take it with you when you leave. I can just use Bobby’s if I need to before then.”_

++

Niall feels sick.

The air around him feels too thin, too hot, too much. All the air has left his lungs, his heart feels like it’s trying to beat out of his chest, he feels sick to his stomach – and he feels like he’s going to pass out. Home doesn’t feel like home, his body doesn’t feel like it belongs to him. Nothing feels right.

“Oh my God…” he mutters, once he does manage to catch his breath. He runs a hand through his hair, shakes his head in disbelief.

“Niall,” Harry says softly, reaching out for him from across the table. “Ni, sit down.”

“What the hell is going on?” Bobby asks, looking frantically between his son, Harry, and Liam.

Niall’s only vaguely aware of the fact that Denise manages to slip out of the room with Theo in her arms. He only half pays attention as Harry walks around the table to stand next to him, doesn’t even have it in him to duck out of the way before Harry lays a hand on his shoulder. He feels numb. His life is falling apart at the seams, and all he feels is…nothing.

“It’s mine,” Niall breathes, his voice shaky and slight. “Isn’t it?”

Liam nods.

“Fuck,” Niall mutters, running a hand over his tired face. Only then does he turn away, forcing Harry to drop his hand. “Fuck, fuck, fuck- FUCK!”

“Where did you find it?” Harry asks, from somewhere behind him.

“Not far from here,” Liam replies. “I went for a run along the paths in the back, and I stepped on it when I went to take a piss. It looks like it’s been there a long time…”

“This doesn’t mean anything, though,” Bobby says, watching Niall nibble anxiously at his nails. “It was already pretty obvious that the brakes were tampered with here, right? Which just means that someone else used the pipe cutter-“

“Or it means that I did it,” Niall mutters, cuts him off.

Harry sighs, “Niall-“

“Stop it- Stop telling me I didn’t do it, when you don’t have a damn clue,” Niall hisses. He wants to shout, wants to scream, wants to yell and cry. He just…doesn’t have the energy. “Stop throwing your confidence in me around like you aren’t wondering, at least a little bit, whether or not I did it. Stop ignoring the facts, Harry.”

“N-Niall,” Harry whispers; blinks, taken aback.

“I was drunk,” Niall scoffs. He shoves both hands into the front pockets of his jeans because, if nothing else, it’ll keep him from chewing them down to the bone. “I don’t remember him leaving. I don’t remember much of anything that happened after he showed up until you woke me up. I had the motive. I had the means, and the opportunity. I even had the _fucking_ tool. And then the tool went missing, apparently, and now Liam’s found it in the woods – and that’s… That’s pretty fucking damning. Everything points to me, Harry.”

Harry shakes his head, furrows his brows in disbelief. “Do you actually believe that? Do you really believe that you could have done that to him?”

“I don’t know, do I?”

“You loved him like a brother,” Harry says softly. “You looked up to him, you adored him-“

“I was fucking his boyfriend!” Niall shouts, finally. “For 10 months, I went behind his back and _fucked_ _his_ _boyfriend_! I…I was so in love with you, Harry.” He pauses, bites his bottom lip between his teeth and shakes his head – because what a stupid fucking excuse. “I don’t even remember a time when I wasn’t, at the very least, completely taken with you. So who’s to say I wasn’t drunk and jealous enough? Who’s to say that I didn’t get angry enough?”

Harry licks his lips, shakes his own head as he steps towards him. He cups Niall’s face and strokes his thumbs over Niall’s wet cheeks whilst ignoring his own – and Niall feels too weak to protest; hadn’t even known that he _had_ been crying. “You didn’t do it,” he whispers, pressing their foreheads together.

Niall closes his eyes. “Stop saying that.”

“No,” Harry says firmly. “No, I’m gonna say it whenever I want, wherever I want, and however often I need to until you believe me. You didn’t do it. You wouldn’t have. You’re too pure. You’re too kind. You’re too caring, and wonderful, and beautiful.”

“Yeah, well,” Niall mumbles, “forgive me if I don’t feel like a ‘pure’ and ‘kind’ and ‘caring’ person.”

“You made a mistake, Niall,” Harry tells him. “We both did. Everyone makes mistakes.”

It wasn’t really a mistake though, Niall wants to say. He knew what he was doing, he knew that it was wrong, and he knew that there could have been some serious consequences no matter what happened – he was just too selfish to care. Maybe he’d just…become too selfish to care about Zayn at all.

“Our mistakes don’t define us,” Harry continues. “ _Your_ mistake doesn’t mean that you have to suffer for the rest of your life, Niall.”

Niall looks at him, gaze on gaze. “It does if I killed him.”

“You-“

The ring of the doorbell cuts Harry off – and suddenly it’s like he’s realizing where they are, and how close they are because he’s pulling away, pushing his hands into his pockets whilst Greg goes to answer the door. Niall follows suite in taking a step back. He glances at Bobby, who looks like he’s deep in thought – probably trying to think of something to say to wreck of a son, and potential murderer. And then he looks at Liam, who’s still holding Niall’s pipe cutter but looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here – but preferably with Louis and Freddie. Niall wishes he could give them both what they want because neither of them asked for this.

Greg returns less than a moment later with Detective Winston, and two other coppers, in tow. “They have a warrant,” he explains sheepishly.

“My son didn’t have anything to do with it,” Bobby says firmly, confidently, as he takes the warrant from Winston’s extended hand. (Niall feels sick again.)

“What are you looking for, exactly?” Greg asks. He folds his arms over his chest and squares his shoulders whilst both coppers begin searching. One begins opening drawers in the kitchen, while the other disappears into the garage.

“A tool, or any such device, that could have been used to tamper with Mr. Malik’s brakes,” Winston explains.

Niall, despite Harry’s silent protests and the grabs he makes for Niall’s wrist, grabs the pipe cutter out of Liam’s hand and then tosses it at the detective. “There you go,” he says, watching Winston catch the tool with what looks like seemingly practiced ease. Maybe he played rugby once. “That’s likely the tool you’re looking for. Liam went for a piss on his run, found it in the woods.” He ignores the roll of Harry’s eyes, as well as his father’s groan.

Winston hums, and then looks up at Niall properly. “Why do you think this is the one we’re looking for, exactly?”

“Because I’m your number one suspect, and it’s mine.”

“And it was found in the woods…”

Niall nods.

“Why was it in the woods?”

The younger lad shrugs, but keeps his face. He won’t give Winston the satisfaction of seeing him feel weak. “Your guess is as good as mine. And it’s _your_ job to figure it out, so…”

X

Winston arrests him. _Niall is arrested._

Bobby shouts.

Greg tells Niall not to open his mouth without a lawyer present.

Theo escapes from upstairs, and then cries and screams and wails when he sees Niall being taken away. Denise only just manages to get a hold of him before the toddler can step out of the house.

And Harry- He follows Niall, and both police officers, out to the car, tells Niall that everything is going to be okay, promises to get him out as quickly as possible.

X

Niall is booked and processed.

They pat-search him down, take his fingerprints, and then put him into a cell in the holding area.

Winston comes by shortly after.

“How long are you going to hold me here without charging me?” Niall asks bluntly, hands holding the bars of the wall between them.

“That depends,” Winston replies. “Corden is currently applying to hold you for 96 hours, instead of 24. Or you could always just…confess.”

Niall remains silent. He might be able to admit to Harry – to his family – that maybe he might have done it, but there’s no way he can admit it to the police. With his luck, they’d just lock him up and throw away the key, regardless of whether or not he’s innocent.

Winston sighs. “Very well. Have a seat, then. Someone will be along to lead you into questioning in a bit.”

“I’m not speaking without a lawyer.”

“Do you have one in mind?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll appoint you one. Until then, just sit tight.”

“’s not like I’ve got much else to do,” Niall, mutters under his breath.

He shits down on the wooden bench, rests his back against the cold, stone wall – and tries not to think about how big he feels in a cell this small.

X

Harry can’t stop his leg from bouncing up and down, can’t stop his heart from beating far too quickly, can’t help the fact that he feels useless and helpless. Niall has been arrested – _arrested_ – for a crime he didn’t commit, and there’s nothing he, or anyone else, can do. “We need to do something,” Harry whispers. He leans forward, rests his elbows on the dining table and dips his head, pushes his hands through his hair. “It’s like… It’s like they’re so intent on Niall being the one behind this, that they aren’t even trying to look for someone else.”

“Maybe they have a reason for that,” Liam mumbles. He’s standing across the kitchen, arms folded over his chest.

Bobby tears his gaze away from looking out the window, narrows his gaze down on Liam instead. “What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?”

All Liam can do is shrug. “I’m just saying… Everything does point to Niall.”

Harry stands, then. He presses his palms against the table – in part to hold himself up, but mostly to keep himself from using them. “Are you actually suggesting that Niall tampered with Zayn’s brakes? Do you really think that he would have done that?”

Liam sighs, “I don’t know, Harry, do I? I’m just saying, it doesn’t look good.”

“Liam-“

“ _Niall_ is right, Harry. He had the opportunity, and he sure as hell had the motive-“

“What- Because he was having an affair with me?” Harry wonders incredulously. “You think that makes him capable of murder?”

Liam blinks. “I don’t-“

“You and Lou had an affair in school too, does that mean that you would have ever been capable of killing Eleanor? Or what about Louis killing Sophia, would that have been possible?”

“That’s different.”

“How?!”

“Neither one of the girls wound up dead!” Liam shouts.

“Guys, come on,” Greg says, sighing heavily as he comes back into the room. He’d walked Denise and Theo to the car less than five minutes ago, having told his wife that there’s no use in the two of them sticking around when Theo is already upset. Theo doesn’t understand, is the thing. (Not that any of them truly understand either.) “Fighting isn’t going to solve anything.”

“I’m not entirely sure Liam wants to help solve anything anyway,” Harry mutters.

Liam looks away.

“Leave, then, Liam. Go back to your boyfriend, and your boyfriend’s baby, and your perfect life.”

He turns to leave, goes to do what he’s told, but then stops just shy of the hallway leading towards the front door. “For what it’s worth, I do want him to be innocent.”

“Fuck you,” Harry snaps. He shakes his head in disbelief, but holds Liam’s gaze nonetheless. “Fuck you for doubting him.”

Silence falls over the rest of them after Liam’s departure. The air is thick with tension, and Harry wishes he knew how to get rid of it. He wishes he knew what to say, at the very least. Because here’s Niall father and there’s his brother, and they’ve just learned everything – but they haven’t even been given a chance to truly digest anything, and Niall’s gone. _Niall’s been arrested._

“I’m gonna drive down to the police station, see if they’ll tell me what’s going to happen now,” Bobby says. He sighs as he grabs his wallet off the kitchen counter. “Why don’t you go home, Harry?”

“I’d rather go with you.“

“If you come with me, the police might try and use that against him. His ex-lover, one who cheated on his boyfriend with a…suspect, probably won’t look very good. Go home. I’ll call you when I know more.”

Harry hates that. He hates that he can’t be there. Hates that if he tried to be there, it could only wind up making things worse. They should have tried to keep the affair a secret, he thinks. Because if they had, then Niall might not be the police department’s prime suspect.

++

_He’s sprawled across his bed, a textbook open in front of him. He has an exam tomorrow, and he’s a bit scared that he’s going to fail – especially if he isn’t able to concentrate; he hasn’t been able to do that in days, not since Niall broke things off with him._

_Niall is right, is the thing, and he knows that. He knows that Niall is right. He knows that they – well, Niall – did the right thing. He knows that ending things between them was best for everyone. It’s just that, well, he misses Niall. It’s not just the being with Niall that he misses, either; it’s everything. This past week has been the longest he’s gone without talking to Niall since they were young kids. He doesn’t know how to not talk to Niall, but Niall won’t talk to him – and he’s more than a bit distracted by that. He’s more than a bit terrified too, because what if they’ve just ruined everything? What if they can’t go back to being friends after this? What if Harry has just lost his best friend?_

_His door opens, suddenly, shockingly, and Harry’s gaze snaps up from his textbook – from where he’s been staring, but not really seeing – to watch Zayn waltz into his work._

_“Hey, babe,” Zayn says, smiling softly as he drops his book bag on Harry’s desk_

_“Hey,” Harry murmurs, watching his boyfriend come closer. “ I didn’t know you were coming over.”_

_Zayn shrugs as he leans down, draws Harry in with a gentle hand at the back of his neck for a kiss. “Got off work early. Are you studying?”_

_Harry nods, smiles as Zayn crawls onto the bed beside him. “Yeah.”_

_“Can you take a break? I wanted to talk to you about something.”_

_Harry blinks, but closes his textbook anyway. “Sure,” he says softly, pushing his books closer to the end of the bed. He turns, then, and crosses his legs as he faces Zayn. “Is everything okay?”_

_“Of course,” Zayn murmurs, scooting closer to him. “I just wanted to talk about school. Or, rather, our living arrangements for when we start uni.”_

_“Oh…” Harry whispers. There’s a lump in his throat now because he knows what’s coming. And even if he didn’t know, he’d have an idea – and, well, it sort of scares the shit out of him. “Okay, what about it?”_

_“I’ve just- I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about us,” Zayn murmurs, reaching a hand out to grasp at Harry’s, “and the two of going to Uni together, and… I was thinking that we could move in together.”_

_And there it is. The question. The thing he’d been expecting – the thing he’d been waiting for, essentially – since Niall mentioned it last week. His stomach churns at the thought of Niall, but also at the thought of, well, this. It’s a huge step, isn’t it? It’s a big commitment. (He wonders, briefly, if Niall felt as sick as he feels right now, thinking about it, when Zayn had told him.)_

_“We’d save money, and…I think it would be good for us, you know? To take the next step.”_

_“I, um- I just…” Harry pauses, licks his lips, trails off – because he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to say no, but he doesn’t want to say yes either._

_What he should do is tell him. He should tell him about Niall, should tell him about the affair; should tell him everything. Except Zayn looks so tender and hopeful, and…Harry doesn’t want to hurt him. He never wants to hurt Zayn, even if that might, someday, be inevitable._

_“Can I think about it?” Harry asks, his voice soft and little bit hesitant. “It’s just, there’s so much going on right now, and I-“_

_“Yeah- Yeah, of course, babe,” Zayn nods. He leans forward, pecks a kiss against Harry’s cheek. “Got a few more months to make anything official anyway, don’t we?”_

_Harry smiles softly, “Thanks.”_

_“I’ll go,” Zayn says, climbing off of the bed, “let you keep studying.” He grabs his bag and throws it over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow, yeah?”_

_“Yeah,” Harry whispers, watching as Zayn turns to leave the way he came. “See you tomorrow.”_

++

The house is quiet when he gets home. It’s a bit weird, given the fact that Taylor almost always has music playing whenever she’s alone, but he doesn’t think much of it.

He kicks off his boots, the places them neatly in the closet by the front door along with his jacket before making his way into the kitchen – which is where he finds his fiancé. He can tell she’s in a bad mood before she even says anything; can tell by the tension in her shoulders and the hard set of her jaw as she avoids having to look at him whilst washing the dishes. A glance into the dining room reveals a plate of food, untouched, on the table.

“Oh, look- You remembered to come home tonight,” Taylor drawls. There’s a sharp edge to her voice that’s laced with bitterness.

Harry, sighs. “Not now, Taylor.”

“Not now?” Taylor asks incredulously. “You’re about _three hours_ late, and you’re telling me ‘not now’?”

And, okay, he supposes he should be easier on her. It’s not her fault that he stayed for dinner, or that Liam showed up with the one thing that truly incriminates Niall – or that Niall got arrested.

Taylor sighs. She places one last pot in the drain bucket next to the sink, and wipes her hand on a dish towel she plucks off the counter before turning to look Harry. “Why are you late, Harry? And why have you been so distracted lately? Is- Is there someone else?”

Harry blinks, taken aback. “No,” he rushes out. “There isn’t someone else.”

“Not this time, huh?”

Harry’s brow furrows as he narrows his gaze, folds his arms across his chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demands.

“I heard a rumour today,” Taylor says, mirroring Harry’s stance as she leans back against the counter. (And, oh- The papers must have already gotten ahold of the story.) “About you and Niall – while you were with Zayn. Is that why you’ve been hanging around with Niall?”

“His mother died, Taylor. I went to her funeral. I-”

“Then what about last night? And tonight?”

“We’re friends, and he’s going through something right now – which you probably heard about today too, right?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Taylor snaps. “And I’m not sure that it’s appropriate, or safe, for you to be around him-“

“Oh, come on,” Harry mutters, rolling his eyes as he walks around the island in the middle of the kitchen – further away from her – towards the fridge. He pulls out a water bottle, shakes his head as he turns back to look at her. “You’re not serious.”

Taylor scoffs. “He’s a suspect in a murder case, Harry. And if the rumours are true, then he’s also incredibly unstable-“

“He didn’t kill Zayn.”

“You don’t know that.”

Harry shakes his head in disbelief. He hates that. Hates that people can actually think that Niall would have hurt Zayn like that. “I really need people to stop telling me that,” he mutters. “I know Niall. Four years ago, I knew Niall better than anyone. I know he didn’t try kill Zayn.”

Taylor sighs. “Harry, baby,” she murmurs as she starts to make her way towards him. “I know you want to believe that, but-“

With that, Harry turns to leave. He can’t stick around and listen to Taylor talk down to him. She doesn’t even know him, doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about.

“Where are you going?” she asks, calling after him.

“To bed,” he mutters.

“But, there’s dinner-“

“I’m not hungry.”

He doesn’t turn back to look at her. He doesn’t answer her as she continues to shout his name. And he sure as hell isn’t going to mention that he’d already eaten dinner anyway. Instead he drags his feet up the stairs and then down the hallway towards their master bedroom – and then straight through to the en suite bathroom. He leaves his phone on the counter, should Bobby call, and locks the door behind him as he closes it; he’s not in the mood for company tonight.

It only takes a matter of seconds to peel his clothes off. He leaves them in a heap on the floor in front of the sink, whilst he waits for the water to get warm. He prefers his showers on the hotter side of warm – especially on a day like today, when everything hurts and the heat takes the edge of, if only temporarily.


	11. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look,” Louis sighs as he follows Harry through the kitchen at the back of the house. “Liam’s just… He’s worried, alright? He’s confused. He doesn’t actually think that Niall was capable of hurting Zayn, he just… He doesn’t know what to think.”
> 
> “He could start with not accusing one of his best friends of murder.”
> 
> “He’s not accusing Niall of being a murderer. He’s just trying to make sense of everything that’s happened since Niall got back. You have to realize, Harry… Niall left almost immediately after Zayn died, and he didn’t look back. He didn’t come back for almost four years, he stopped talking to us-“
> 
> “He felt like he was responsible,” Harry says, cutting him off effectively. He sits Freddie down, facing him, on the countertop at the island and lets the baby play fabric of his shirt. “He felt like it was his fault, because Zayn was drunk and he couldn’t remember trying to stop him. He thought it was his fault because it’s his house that Zayn went to, and it’s his house that Zayn left.“
> 
> “I know,” Louis murmurs. He’s standing on the other side of the island, looking at Harry with a somber expression etched into the lines of his face. “I know that, Harry.”
> 
> “He didn’t do it.”
> 
> “I know.”

_It’s the middle of the night and he’s still awake, sitting up in bed, back against his headboard. His pillow is propped up behind his head and legs are bent, knees pulled up close to his chest. He’s balancing his phone on his one knee, spinning and flipping it around absentmindedly._

_Shopping with his mum this evening had been a welcomed distraction, and he’s never been more thankful for a woman’s love for shoes – but now he’s alone, and he can’t sleep. He’s alone with his thoughts, and all he can think about is ZaynZaynZayn, when it isn’t NiallNiallNiall. He can’t stop thinking about Niall, and the last time they saw each other – that wasn’t Niall blatantly taking off in the opposite direction to avoid him; can’t stop thinking about everything that Niall had said that day, about everything they’ve done. He can’t stop thinking about how right Niall had been, and about how Zayn was going to ask him to move in together; can’t stop thinking about Zayn and how hopeful he’d looked._

_It’s late, and Zayn is probably already in bed, but he isn’t sure how much longer he can do this; isn’t sure how long he can continue to lie to his boyfriend. He loves Zayn, he does, but… He isn’t in love with him, not anymore. He’s not even entirely sure if he ever properly was. What he felt for Zayn, before, is magnified tenfold now for Niall._

_His heart wants Niall. His soul wants Niall. Every fiber of his being wants NiallNiallNiall – and he can’t keep stringing Zayn along. He just…can’t._

_His phone vibrates, then, and the screen lights up with Trisha’s name. His stomach plummets, then, because Trisha only ever calls him when she’s trying to get a hold of Zayn and, well, as far Harry was aware, Zayn was at home._

_“Hello?”_

_Trisha’s voice comes through the phone, then, but she sounds far away, and echo-y. She’s also crying, choking on sobs and sniffing back tears as she tries to get the words – words that Harry can’t understand, between the sobs choking her and how quickly she’s trying to get it all out._

_“Hey- Trisha- Trisha, slow down,” Harry says urgently. His heart is in his throat as he sits up, and he pushes his free hand through his hair. “What’s wrong?”_

_Only two words register, then: ‘Zayn’ and ‘accident’._

_It’s like the ground falls out beneath him, and he wants it to swallow him whole._

++

Taylor is in the kitchen, wrapped up in a bathrobe when Harry walks in through the back door after his run. Her hair is thrown up in a messy bun on the top of her head, and she’s holding a teacup between her hands as she watches Harry close the door behind him.

They haven’t spoken since he went upstairs last night. She’d come up shortly after he got out of the shower, but he’d pretended to be asleep so that she wouldn’t try to talk to him. He wasn’t ready, is the thing – and he isn’t even sure if he’s ready now.

“Morning,” Taylor murmurs, smiling sheepishly when Harry looks at her.

“Morning.”

“I made breakfast,” she says, nodding her head towards the island. She’s prepared two plates of eggy bread, with two small side dishes of fruit salad. “Consider it a do-over for last night.”

“’m not hungry,” Harry says. And he isn’t, either; he’s not just saying that. It’s like he’s lost his appetite completely, and he thinks it might have everything to do with the fact that he can’t stop thinking about Niall – no matter how far or how hard he runs. He can’t stop thinking about Niall, alone, with nothing but his own thoughts in a cold, dark cell-

“Harry, you have to eat something.”

He nods, then. “I will. When I’m hungry.” He tries to leave, tries to just…go upstairs, to be alone – but her voice, soft and inviting and a little bit sad, stops him. He hates making her sad.

“Hey, c’mere,” she whispers, reaching out for him as he tries to slip past her. She runs a hand down his arm as he stops. “Please don’t be mad at me. I’m just…worried about you, is all.”

Harry sighs softly, turns to face her slowly. “I know,” he whispers back. He curls an arm around her waist, squeezes her hip with his fingers. “But it’s not me you need to worry about.”

Taylors frowns as she cards a hand through his hair. “I know you’re worried about Niall, babe. I just- I can’t help but wonder-“

“He didn’t do it, Taylor.”

“Okay- Alright, that’s what you believe, and I understand that,” she insists, curling her hands around the back of his neck. She holds him there, looks at him properly. “But I’m worried about you, and how involved you are in this. You can understand that, right?”

“Yeah. I get that, it’s just…” He trails off, rubs his hands up and down her sides as he looks down. “He’s the only person the police are interested in, everyone in town is going to think it was him, Liam is doubting him, which means that Louis is probably also doubting him, I don’t think Greg is too confident in him, and his dad is trying to be confident but I know that there’s a part of him that’s worried. Hell, even Niall is doubting himself because he can’t remember. I’m the only one he’s got with 100% confidence that he didn’t do it, so if I don’t fight for him then… Then he doesn’t have anyone.”

“So… It’s not because you’re still in love with him?”

Harry blinks. His brow furrows as he lifts his gaze to look at her. She’s smiling sheepishly, looking at him hopefully, and- “No. It’s not because I’m still in love with him.” (It’s not a complete lie.)

“Are you sure?”

He sighs. “Taylor,” he says. “Even if it were, it isn’t about that. He’s- The police have him in custody because they think he killed his best friend, and I know he didn’t.”

“How?” she asks softly, with a tilt of her head. “How do you know that he didn’t do it, if you weren’t there?”

“Because I knew him better than anyone,” Harry tells her. “He would never have hurt Zayn.”

“He was sleeping with you behind Zayn’s back, Harry-“

“And I was sleeping with Niall behind Zayn’s back.”

Taylor sighs. “That’s different-“

“It’s not different.”

“It is different,” Taylor insists, albeit softly.

“He didn’t do it,” Harry says firmly. This time he pulls away from her; drops his hands and takes a few steps back.

“I know you want to believe that, and I get it, but- Harry, you don’t know that.”

“I know Niall,” he repeats, more or less. “I knew him back then more than I even knew myself. He didn’t even like killing _spiders_. There’s no way that he would have tried to kill anyone, let alone _Zayn_.” He shrugs, stuffs his hands into the pockets of his joggers. “You don’t have to believe me- I mean, hell, Niall doesn’t even believe me, but-“

“Why doesn’t Niall believe you?” she asks softly, folding her arms across her waist. “You mentioned earlier that he doubts himself. Why?”

“He can’t remember most of what happened that night,” Harry murmurs. “He remembers Zayn coming over and confronting him, but not much else- He doesn’t remember Zayn leaving, so doesn’t know what happened between then and when Zayn got there.”

“Does he think he did it?”

Harry shrugs. “I don’t think he knows what to think, to be honest. I think he just…feels really guilty, you know? And maybe he’s trying to rationalize that somehow? Maybe he thinks it explains why he feels guilty, or maybe…” He trails off as his stomach plummets, twists and aches. He feels sick over the thought floating through his head now; the thought that maybe Niall _wants_ to be guilty.

Niall has already spent the last four years punishing himself, after all.

“’Or maybe’ what, babe?” Taylor asks softly.

Harry shakes his head. “Nothing,” he whispers.

“Okay, well I’m gonna go take a shower,” she says, then. “I have a lunch date with Abby, so I’ll be gone for most of the afternoon, if that’s okay?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

She smiles at him, pecks a kiss against his cheek before she flutters away.

Harry thinks it’s probably for the best that she be gone for the afternoon anyway. He could use some time to himself.

++

_He’s tried everything._

_He’s tried giving Niall space. He’s tried calling, and texting. He’s tried going through the front door – and more importantly, he’s tried going through his parents. (Maura had looked sympathetic; looked like she’d wanted to let Harry inside, like she’d wanted to send him upstairs to be with her son because if Niall was going to let anyone see him when he wanted to be alone it’s Harry. But, well, also- Niall is her son, and her son just wants to be alone so Maura sends him away with nothing but a kiss to his forehead.)_

_And he gets it. He gets wanting to be alone. Hell, Harry wants to be alone too, most of the time – but he also wants to see Niall. He needs to see Niall; feels like he’ll go crazy if he doesn’t._

_Climbing up onto the roof outside Niall’s bedroom window is, weirdly enough, his last ditch effort to get Niall to let him in. He trips climbing up the side of the wall, and his left foot slips out from under him on a wet shingle but he manages to catch himself on the window ledge before he falls. He reaches for the window frame itself, then, and goes to pull it open but-_

_It’s locked._

_Niall’s bedroom window is locked._

_Niall’s bedroom window is_ never _locked. Since the first time Harry tried to sneak in through Niall’s window when they were kids, Niall has kept it unlocked. His window was always open for Harry. Always._

_He sighs as he sits, leans his back against the side of the house and pulls his legs up to his chest. He rests his head back, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Niall,” he says softly, though loud enough that he knows that Niall can hear him. The head of the bed is right next to the window, after all. “I just want to see you, Ni. I just- I need to see you.”_

_He’s met with nothing but silence on Niall’s end. In fact, the only thing he can hear is his own heart beating, tapping against his ribcage. “Trisha called me this morning to talk about funeral arrangements. She said she wants the four of us to help carry the casket out, and I just- I froze. I didn’t know how tell her that I didn’t know if I could – or that you could either. Hell, I don’t even feel like I know how to talk to her anymore._

_“And between Zayn being…and you not talking to me – or to anyone, really – waking up feels like torture, and I just- I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if I can do this without you.”_

_He sniffs, wipes at wet cheeks. Niall’s there and Niall can hear him, Harry knows this. And as much as he’d much rather say this to Niall’s face, he thinks that this is the next best thing – because even though Niall hasn’t opened the window to let him in, at least Niall hasn’t opened the window to push him even further away._

_“Niall,” he whispers. “Please don’t make me do this without you.”_

++

The doorbell rings. And rings. And rings.

At first, Harry thinks it might be an impatient solicitor. Then, he thinks it might be the police. But then the ringing becomes a constant stream of noise – and Harry knows who it is before he even reaches the front door at all.

His t-shirt is stuck around his torso as he grabs the door handle and then yanks it open. Louis is standing on the other side of the threshold, a shit-eating grin stretched across his thin lips. He’s holding Freddie in his arms; Freddie, whose gaze is focused intently on the button in front of him with his arm stretched out, trying to press it.

“Starting him young, are you?” Harry asks as he steps aside to let the shorter bloke into the house.

Louis shrugs. “He’s his daddy’s kid, what can I say? Is Taylor around?”

“No, her friend picked her up a little while ago; something about a lunch date. Gimme the baby.”

Louis rolls his eyes as he passes Freddie, who’s already got his chubby little hands reaching out to Harry anyway. “Good,” he says, watching as Freddie tries to grab a handful of Harry’s hair. Unfortunately for Freddie, Harry is too quick. We need to talk.”

“If you’re here to tell me your doubts about Niall, you can leave,” Harry mutters, though his gaze doesn’t leave Freddie’s precious little face. “And you can leave the baby, for a bit.”

“Look,” Louis sighs as he follows Harry through the kitchen at the back of the house. “Liam’s just… He’s worried, alright? He’s confused. He doesn’t actually think that Niall was capable of hurting Zayn, he just… He doesn’t know what to think.”

“He could start with not accusing one of his best friends of murder.”

“He’s not accusing Niall of being a murderer. He’s just trying to make sense of everything that’s happened since Niall got back. You have to realize, Harry… Niall left almost immediately after Zayn died, and he didn’t look back. He didn’t come back for almost four years, he stopped talking to us-“

“He felt like he was responsible,” Harry says, cutting him off effectively. He sits Freddie down, facing him, on the countertop at the island and lets the baby play fabric of his shirt. “He felt like it was his fault, because Zayn was drunk and he couldn’t remember trying to stop him. He thought it was his fault because it’s his house that Zayn went to, and it’s his house that Zayn left.“

“I know,” Louis murmurs. He’s standing on the other side of the island, looking at Harry with a somber expression etched into the lines of his face. “I know that, Harry.”

“He didn’t do it.”

“I know.”

Harry exhales, relieved. He doesn’t feel so alone now; it makes him sick to think about how alone Niall must feel.

“I know that Niall loved him like a brother – we both do,” Louis says softly. “We all do. He fucked up, you fucked up, we all fucked up. But it doesn’t make us bad people, and it doesn’t make Niall a murderer. Liam would have come with me, to tell you himself, but he didn’t think you’d want to see him after last night.”

Harry sighs. “Of course I would.”

“Right, well- Should we get a move on proving our boy innocent, then? There has to be something we can do, right?”

“You call Liam,” Harry tells him as he pulls Freddie back up into his arms, balances him on his hip. “I’ll keep the baby and get some food ready.”

“Better not be any of that kale bullshit, Styles. Especially not in front of my son. I won’t stand for that kind of corruption.”

X

“What if Niall was supposed to be the victim?” Liam’s solemn words leave his mouth only to linger in the air like fog, thick with tension.

Harry freezes. Blinks. Stares at Liam like he has two heads as he waits for his heart to stop racing, waits for his head to stop buzzing and for the dust to settle. He’s not sure what makes him feel worse – the thought itself, or the fact that Liam might have a point. _What if Niall was supposed to be the victim?_

“I mean, think about it-“ Liam mutters, licking his lips as he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “It obviously had to have happened at Niall’s house, right? So, what if whoever did it mistook Zayn’s car for Niall’s?”

Harry leans back against the sofa, rests his head against the back of it as he stares up at the ceiling. Zayn’s car was black, and Niall’s was navy blue – but in the dark, they both look black. They were different models as well, of course, but who’s to say that whoever is to blame hadn’t paid that much attention?

“That’s- That’s a good suggestion, actually,” Louis agrees.

“Except that Niall had even less enemies than Zayn did, and Zayn didn’t have any,” Harry points out at an afterthought. Everyone loved Niall. He was that guy at school that was friends with everyone, even if they weren’t technically friends. Nobody ever had anything bad to say about Niall. Ever.

Louis sighs. “That’s true. Everyone loved Niall.”

“Unless-“ Harry says, and he cuts himself off as he, too, leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He feels sick. “What if… What if someone’s trying to set Niall up? What if whoever killed Zayn wasn’t just trying to kill Zayn? What if they were trying to set Niall up for killing Zayn?”

Liam and Louis stare at him, faces blank.

Harry licks his lips, pushes himself to his feet and slips out from between the sofa and the coffee table to stand in the middle of the living room. He just- Needs to stretch, or something; needs to move, needs room to breathe. “Niall’s garage was open when I got there,” he starts to explain, as he struggles to wrap his head around his own thoughts, “but the door was locked. It wouldn’t have been hard for someone to get a hold of the pipe cutter if the garage was open – and Niall was drunk, so maybe he just didn’t realize that it _was_ open. It’s not a coincidence that Niall’s cutter went missing. Maybe the goal was for it to come out that the brakes had been tampered with, which means maybe a search would have been done and someone would have found the cutter, and it all would have come back to Niall. But Zayn was drunk, so it got labelled an accident and nobody bothered to look into it further.”

“I dunno, Harry,” Liam murmurs, sounding skeptical. “That’s an awful lot for someone to think about in a small time frame.”

Harry shrugs. “What it if wasn’t a small timeframe, then? What if it had been planned for a long time, and that night just happened to be the perfect time? And now- What are the odds of Niall coming back home for the first time in four years, and someone dropping a note about it in his mailbox?”

“Harry, for all we know, someone just witnessed something, and they’re just too afraid to come forward, remember?”

Liam nods. “Explains why they’ve stayed silent for the last four years.”

“If someone had just witnessed something, and the police have the wrong guy, then that witness would probably have come forward in Niall’s defence already.”

“To be fair, though, he was only just arrested yesterday and news about it is only just coming out today,” Liam points out. (And, yeah, he’s got a point…) “We might have to just…wait and see what happens over the next day or two, while he’s in custody.”

Harry sighs, pushes his hands through his hair. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Louis rubs a gentle hand over the top of Freddie’s head, whilst the baby plays absentmindedly with one of Louis’ footballs, as he stands up. “You know what I think we need right now? A little bit of day drinking. Where’s your alcohol hiding, Harold?”

Less than five minutes later, and no further along in getting answers, they’ve all collected around the dining room table, beer bottles raised as they prepare to toast.

“To Niall,” Louis whispers.

“To Zayn,” Liam murmurs.

Harry closes his eyes as he clinks the bottom of his bottle against the both of theirs.

_To both of them._

X

“I feel guilty,” Harry finds himself saying a couple of hours later. His stomach churns as he places his third empty beer bottle on coffee table, and he knows it’s not because of the alcohol itself. (It’s because the alcohol has made him think a little bit too much.)

“For drinking in Zayn’s and Niall’s honour without either of them being here?” Liam asks, albeit rhetorically. “Because me too.”

Louis hums his agreement, a sleeping Freddie lying peacefully on his chest with his little face tucked into the warm curve of his neck.

“That, and- For being on Niall’s side through this, when it feels like I should be on Zayn’s,” Harry whispers. “For still…wanting Niall – even after everything that’s happened, and after Zayn, and after…Taylor.”

“I reckon Zayn would want you to be on Niall’s side, if he knew that Niall is innocent, though,” Louis says, smiling sadly at him. “Just because he was angry as all hell with Niall, he wouldn’t want Niall to go down for something he _didn’t_ do.”

“I reckon Zayn would just want you to be happy, no matter what,” Liam murmurs. He takes one last sip from his own beer, before tucking the bottle into the space between his thighs.

Harry nods. “Maybe.”

“Don’t feel guilty for not wanting Niall to spend the next, like, 15 years in prison, Harry,” Louis tells him, them. “As far as everything else goes, just- Cross that bridge when you get to it, yeah?”

 _If I get to it_ , Harry thinks.

++

_He breathes heavy, and walks slowly. His heart feels like it’s lodged within the slim confines of his throat, and his stomach feels like it’s full of rocks as he walks on shaky legs around the end of the bed._

_The walls are white, the room smells clean (too clean, if that’s possible) – and the steady thrum of the machine tracking Zayn’s heartbeat is the only thing he can hear over the beat of his own heart; it’s like a mantra._

_Zayn is so impossibly still, lying in the bed amidst crisp, white linens and puffy pillows. His skin is much paler than usual, his face looks a bit slimmer than the last time they saw each other and his dark hair has been pushed back off of his forehead – probably by Trisha, before she’d left to give Harry a moment alone with her son._

_It’s a moment he isn’t sure that he deserves, and simultaneously they only one he thinks he might ever get again._

_Harry lowers himself into the chair next to Zayn’s bed and then leans forward as he takes ahold of Zayn’s hand. He runs his thumb over Zayn’s palm, traces the tips of his fingers over top of Zayn’s veins, brings Zayn’s up towards his lips to press a kiss against his knuckles._

_“Hi,” he whispers. His voice quivers through that one syllable as he breathes out. “Hi, babe.”_

_Zayn remains still. Motionless. He doesn’t react at all; he doesn’t squeeze his fingers, he doesn’t shift, his heartbeat doesn’t slow down or quicken. Nothing._

_He gets nothing, just as he’d expected. Just as he’d been told, due to the fact that Zayn is still very much in a coma. And yet, the doctors keep telling him to keep talking. He can hear you, they keep saying. Just keep talking to him. Keep telling him whatever it is you need him to know._

_It’s been days, and Harry has kept talking, and Zayn still hasn’t woken up. He’s afraid that Zayn might never wake up. And that’s why he’s here, now. That’s why he needs to tell Zayn everything. Zayn deserves to know everything._

_“So, um…Niall and I have been seeing each other,” he murmurs softly. His voice still sounds shaky, and his eyes are burning with tears and his mouth feels cotton but he has to do this. He needs to do this. For Zayn. “_ Had _been seeing each other, technically. Since last summer. We- He broke it off a couple of months ago because he knew you were going to ask me to move in with you when we started school and he wanted me to say yes to you.”_

_He pauses, draws in a long, deep breath as he tries to steady his rapidly beating heart. (It does very little in calming him down.)_

_“It just… I promise, Zayn, it just_ happened _. We didn’t plan it, it just happened. I was… I was pushing him one day about this person he liked because he wouldn’t tell – he hadn’t ever told me – and then he just kissed me, and he looked so scared after, like- Like he didn’t know what to do. And then he ran, and he kept avoiding me. All I wanted to do was talk about it and he wouldn’t talk to me and then it was like… It was like I couldn’t stop thinking about, couldn’t stop thinking about him, could stop myself from wanting him and- And then it just happened and neither of knew how to stop. Neither of us wanted to._

_“So we went behind you back, and we kept going behind your back – and the next thing I know, I’m in love with him. He’s been in love with me for years, but all it took was a few months for me to fall in love with him. And that sounds so bad – so bad – because there’s you and I love you, and I’ll always love you, and Niall loves you, but I’ve never- I’ve never felt this way, the way I feel about Niall. I’ve always loved you, Zayn, but I’m in love with Niall._

_“And I was going to tell you. I was planning on telling you weeks ago, but I got scared and then- And then this happened. And you’re here, but you’re not here, and… You just deserve to know. I know you can hear me, and you deserve to know-”_

_A sob, forcing itself out of his throat, cuts him off. And then all the others that he’d been forcing down, that have been clogging up his chest and making his ribs hurt, follow suit – and he can’t stop them. He cries, and he sobs, and his cheeks are wet with salty tears and he can’t stop._

++

Harry goes to bed early. Taylor tries to get him to stay up, tries to seduce him into making love to her, but he’s tired – exhausted, really – and, well, the last thing on his mind right now, whilst Niall is alone and scared and confused in a holding cell, is sex. In fact, the thought of it sort of makes him feel queasy.

So he declines Taylors advances and he goes to bed early – and then he pretends to be asleep when Taylor comes stumbling into the bedroom a few hours later, smelling like expensive wine, because he doesn’t want to deal with even more of a headache. In fact, Taylor falls asleep before he does because his brain won’t stop whirring with thoughts of Niall and Zayn and whoever might be trying to set Niall up for killing Zayn.


	12. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Zayn had a picture with him,” Niall says. “It- It slipped my mind before, with everything going on, but- He had a picture with him the night he confronted me – threw it in my face.”
> 
> “What was the picture of?”
> 
> “Us. It was a picture of us snogging-“
> 
> “That’s impossible,” Harry interrupts. “We never- Nothing ever happened in public-“
> 
> “It did once,” Niall reminds him. “We just didn’t think anyone would be around.”
> 
> Harry remains silent, then. Niall can practically hear him thinking.
> 
> “We were at the Viaduct,” Niall whispers. “I couldn’t sleep, you couldn’t sleep, and-“
> 
> “I kissed you.”
> 
> “And I kissed you,” he murmurs, playing absentmindedly with his hair. “And someone was there – and maybe they followed you, or maybe they followed me, or maybe they were just there- But either way, someone took a picture of us and then showed it to Zayn.”

_*click*_

_He watches through the lens of his DSLR as a light pink blush works its way up Niall’s neck, and splashes across his cheeks._

_*click*_

_He watches, a smile tugging at his own lips, as the corners of Niall’s mouth twitch with the effort not to smile._

_*click*_

_He watches, his heart expanding inside his chest, as Niall caves in and a smile stretches itself out across his lips, laughs because Niall’s smile takes up most of his face._

_*click* *click* *click*_

_He watches, bottom lip caught between his teeth, as a ray of sunshine catches Niall’s face and-_

_*click*_

_He loves the way Niall looks in the sun – like he’s glowing brighter than usual. He zooms in on Niall’s blue, blue eyes, and the slope of Niall’s nose, and the freckles on his cheek that are surrounded by a splash of red, red heat. He settles, then, on Niall’s wonderfully soft lips._

_“You’re supposed to be doing a project about nature,” Niall’s lips say._

_*click*_

_Harry shrugs, pulls the camera away from his face. His gaze settles, then, on the textbook splayed out in front of Niall on the bed. “Maybe you are my project. Niall Horan, in his_ natural _habitat.”_

_Niall rolls his eyes, despite the smile still lingering on his lips and the pink staining his cheeks._

_“Or maybe you’re just really beautiful.”_

_Niall blushes even harder, as he tucks his chin down into his chest like he’s trying to disappear. He doesn’t usually mind having his photo taken, is the thing. In fact, he’s actually a bit of a snob when it comes to taking selfies – both by himself, and with other people. And he’s never actually told Harry to stop taking pictures of him, or even complained about it, but he has teased Harry about being ‘a paparazzo, always taking pictures of him’. And, well, he’s not lying; Harry does take a lot of pictures of Niall._

_“You’re an idiot,” Niall murmurs. What his voice lacks in conviction, it has pure adoration._

_“An idiot in love.”_

_Niall freezes, hesitates before he looks across the room at where Harry’s sitting at his desk._

_And Harry feels frozen too. His heart is suddenly beating too fast, and his palms are sweating, and it feels like he’s forgotten how to breath as he stares at Niall with wide eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to say that,” he says, a moment later. There’s a lump in his throat that makes it hard to swallow. “That- That wasn’t supposed to happen. I-“_

_“Are you?” Niall asks softly. He blinks a few times as he pushes himself up on the bed and moves his textbook out of the way – in what Harry thinks might be a silent invitation, but hesitates. “In love with me?”_

_The word is on the tip of Harry’s tongue, but he can’t make himself say it. So, instead, he nods._

_Niall’s brow furrows, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. “And Zayn?”_

_“I don’t know anymore…” Harry whispers. He places his camera on Niall’s desk and then climbs to his feet._

_“But you love_ me _?”_

_Harry walks across the room, crawls onto the bed and then into Niall’s lap. He cups Niall’s face as he presses their foreheads together, looks directly and purposely into Niall’s hopeful, loving gaze. “So much that I barely know what to do with myself when you aren’t around.”_

_Niall stares at him for one impossibly long minute and then- Kisses him. Niall kisses him softly, tenderly, gingerly; sometimes Harry thinks that Niall thinks he’s made of glass or something. (Other times, though, Niall kisses him desperately, hungrily, wantonly; like he can’t get enough, but he wants it all. Either way, he kisses Harry like he was meant to, like he was made for it.)_

_And even though Niall doesn’t say it verbally, because he can’t – and Harry doesn’t have to ask why to know why, it’s in Niall’s kiss. It’s the way Niall cradles his face and pulls him closer and whispers in Harry’s ear that he wants him to stay forever._

++

Liam has already left for work, and Freddie is gone with Briana for the day, by the time Harry gets to Louis’ (and Liam’s?) house. It’s early, still, and Harry is supposed to be at work as well – or at least that’s what he told Taylor when he left. In reality, however, he’d called the studio while he’d gone on his early morning run and told one of the other photographers to cancel any appointments that can wait until further notice, and rebook the ones that can’t with himself for a more convenient time. He says it’s for a family emergency. (He’s not entirely lying.)

“I hate that we can’t even see him,” Harry sighs. He lets himself fall onto the sofa in the family room. “Bobby called me this morning and told me that Theo cried all morning because Niall wasn’t there like he was supposed to be. He doesn’t understand why Niall is just…gone, or why he can’t see Niall, and- He said that Greg said that Theo thinks that Niall left without saying goodbye – like, left the country, and that Greg keeps trying to explain that Niall isn’t _gone_ -gone, but Theo’s just too young to understand why Niall isn’t there right now.

“And I just- I hate that we can’t even be there for him- For Niall, you know? I hate that we can’t even go see him to see how he’s doing.”

“I know,” Louis mutters, nursing a cup of tea between his hands as he joins Harry on the sofa. “Did you see the paper this morning?”

Harry shakes his head. “I’ve been avoiding it.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

Harry wants to ask why that is, and he thinks he knows why, but he’s too afraid to ask just in case Louis confirms it for him. Knowing it is one thing, but seeing it and hearing about it would be something else entirely.

Louis, like Harry, looks like he barely slept a wink last night. He has dark circles under his eyes and he seems exceptionally sluggish this morning even though, judging by the several empty sugar packets on the counter in the kitchen, he’s had at least two cups of tea already. At least, Harry hopes that he’s had at least two. “So,” he starts, running a hand over his face. “I’ve been thinking about everything we talked about yesterday and I know we concluded that everyone loved Niall so nobody would have wanted to kill him, let alone hurt him, but evidently that can’t be entirely true anyway, yeah? I mean- Niall is the one in a holding cell at the moment – so whether he’s been set up, or someone tried to kill him but just got the wrong car, somebody in Holmes Chapel has not loved Niall like everybody else.”

And, well, yeah- Louis has a point. Harry’s thought more about it too. He's probably thought about it too much.

“And what if- What if Liam has more of a point than we originally thought?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean-” Louis says, leaning forward to place his mug on the coffee table. “Niall mentioned that Zayn knew about the two of you, right? And if nobody knew, but Zayn knew, then obviously someone had to tell him which means that someone else did know. Then Zayn, predictably, got angry and he confronted Niall, yeah? So what if this person – this someone that knew before Zayn knew – had actually planned for Zayn to confront you? And what if this person tampered with what they thought was Niall’s car to make it look like Zayn had done it before he left?

“Zayn would have had a motive as well, given that Niall was fucking his boyfriend. It even makes more sense for someone to set Zayn up instead, because Zayn was the angry one. Zayn was the one that showed up to confront Niall, so it makes sense that the intention was for it to look like Zayn tampered with Niall’s brakes in a fit of rage for the next time Niall went to drive the car.”

“Jesus,” Harry breathes. His stomach feels sick, and he’s suddenly incredibly glad that he skipped Taylor’s breakfast this morning.

“It makes sense, right?” Louis asks, looking at Harry for some sort of validation. “I don’t sound completely bonkers?”

Harry blinks. “Yeah, no, it makes sense. I just…”

“I mean, either way, I guess it doesn’t really matter,” Louis admits. “What matters is that Niall is the one being set up _now_.”

“Yeah,” Harry mutters. “And we just have to figure out a way to prove it since the detectives seem pretty dead set on it actually being Niall who did it.”

Louis takes another sip of his tea and then sighs. “To be fair, the evidence is pretty stacked against Niall.”

“I know,” Harry whispers. That’s another thought that makes him sick; not because he doubts that Niall is innocent, but rather because he knows that Niall _is_ innocent.

“Like- As if being the last person to see him alive, and having gotten into a fight directly before his death, and a history of sleeping with his boyfriend, and having all kinds of motive wasn’t enough – there’s literally a pipe cutter with Niall’s name on it that is likely going to come back as a match to the cuts on Zayn’s brake cords.”

And, yeah- If Louis doesn’t stop talking, Harry is pretty sure that he might actually be sick.

“The only thing about trying to kill Niall, is that it could have put someone else in danger,” Louis whispers. “Like- Bobby, or Greg. Which means that if that’s the case, then whoever is responsible must not have cared much. Then again, it’s quite obvious that whoever it is has definitely got some screws loose, so-“

“’m gonna be sick,” Harry mutters, then. And then he’s pushing himself up off the couch. He only just makes it to loo, with Louis right behind him to get him a cold, damp wash cloth and a glass of cold water. It’s less vomit, though, and more bile – but it burns his throat coming up nonetheless.

“Jesus, mate,” Louis mutters. He offers Harry the glass of water just as Harry’s leaning back against the bathtub. “When was the last time you actually ate?”

Harry just groans; he knows that Louis won’t actually like the answer, so he doesn’t give one.

X  
++

_Niall hears Harry before he sees him; hears his feet moving in the grass, hears the fabric of his jumper rustling as he moves. He looks up, watches Harry walk around him before lowering himself to the ground next to him. The lantern Niall had brought with him is the only reason he sees that Harry looks about as tired as Niall feels, as he leans back against the wall. Niall only looks away when Harry looks at him, though he isn’t entirely sure why._

_“I didn’t follow you here, I promise,” Harry murmurs, resting his elbows on his bent knees. He plays absentmindedly with the ring around his index finger on his left hand._

_“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Niall mutters back._

_Harry shakes his head._

_Niall wants to kiss him; wants to invite him back to sleep with him because he guarantees they’d both be able to sleep better, probably. But he doesn’t._

_“Zayn asked me to move in with him,” the brunet says, a moment later._

_“Congratulations.”_

_Harry sighs. “I haven’t given him an answer.”_

_Niall rolls his head along the brick to look at him, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He watches Harry swallow hard, watches his Adam’s apple bob, watches him tug his bottom lip in between his teeth. Niall wants to kiss him, but he doesn’t._

_“Eleven months ago, at the ripe age of 16, I would have said yes in a heartbeat,” Harry admits softly. “But so much has happened, and so much has changed, and- I don’t even know if it’s what I want anymore, let alone if I’m ready for it.”_

_The urge to beg him not to has never been stronger in Niall. He’s been thinking a lot about running away lately; about taking that road trip Harry had mentioned ages ago, about asking Harry go to with him, about not looking back. But he doesn’t._

_Harry licks his lips. “I miss you-“_

_“Harry,” Niall sighs._

_“And I know that you don’t want to hear it – I know that, but it’s how I feel, and I don’t- I don’t know how to not feel it. I don’t know how to make it go away. I don’t_ want _to make it go away.”_

_Niall can’t deny that he feels the same way, so he doesn’t say anything at all._

_“If you asked me to do it – if you asked me to move in with you, or to go away with you, or whatever- I’d do it, Niall. In a heartbeat."_

_“I know,” the blond whispers, pushing a hand through his hair as he looks away. And Niall does know that, which is partly why he refuses to ask._

_And then Harry’s there, and he’s closer – and his hand is cupping Niall’s cheek as he tugs gently for Niall to look at him, and he’s pressing their foreheads together, and Niall’s eyes are closed but he can feel Harry looking at him as he brushes his nose against Niall’s cheek. “I don’t know how to stop loving you,” he whispers._

_Niall almost laughs because he’s been thinking the exact same thing._

++

The clang of metal on metal wakes him. Bleary-eyed and a bit disoriented, Niall pushes himself up on his elbows to look around. His heart sinks as he takes in his surroundings, and his stomach churns as he’s reminded why, via the officer standing on the other side of the bars. He realizes, as his gaze finally begins to settle, that the sound that had woken him was the man’s wedding ring making contact with the bars of his holding cell over and over again.

“You’re wanted in the interrogation room,” the officer says. He unlocks the door, then, and swings it open.

“I already said that I won’t talk without a solicitor.”

“You have one. His name is Jack Whitehall, he’s been brought up to speed on the case, and he’s waiting for you.”

Niall nods, pushes himself to his feet. He checks his pockets out of habit, before remembering that they’d taken and boxed everything he had when they brought him in; the memory makes his stomach churn.

 

Both Winston and a man he assumes is Jack Whitehall – he’s tall, with short dark hair and a full beard, wearing a suit and holding a briefcase – are in the interrogation room when he gets there. He looks a bit young but, well, Niall is in no place to judge either way.

“Niall, hello,” Jack Whitehall says, as Niall walks into the room. He steps forward to shake Niall’s hand. “I’m Jack, and I’ll be your solicitor. It’s my understanding that Winston has a few questions to ask you, so feel free have a seat.”

Niall thinks that that’s just a polite way of telling Niall to sit down. Which Niall does; he walks around the edge of the table in the middle of the room, pulls out a metal chair and sits down slowly. Jack Whitehall sits next to him.

“Forensics confirms that the blade from your cutter matches the abrasions on the brake lines,” Winston drawls, folding his arms over his chest.

“I figured.”

Winston raises an eyebrow. “Is that a confession?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” Whitehall says.

“It’s not a confession, just common sense,” Niall says, leaning forward to fold his arms over the tabletop, “considering the brakes were tampered with while his car was at my house, the cutter was found in the woods behind my house, and the cutter belongs to me.”

“So, if you aren’t confessing then what are you trying to say?”

“My garage was open all evening that night,” he explains. “It’s how Zayn got his car inside the garage to begin with. All anyone would have had to do is walk in, find the cutter, cut the brakes and then leave.”

“But you still can’t be sure that it wasn’t you.”

“You don’t have to answer that either,” Whitehall interjects quickly.

Niall shrugs. “I’m Switzerland. But it’s not really my job to prove myself innocent, is it? Because it’s your job to prove that I’m guilty.”

Winston smirks. “And you are looking more and more guilty every day. So maybe you should try, yeah? Try to prove yourself innocent, Mr. Horan.”

“You don’t have to do that, Niall,” Whitehall presses.

Niall sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I think I’m being set up.”

Winston quirks an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because what are the odds that I come back after being gone for nearly four years, during which everyone is under the impression that Zayn’s death was merely a drunken accident, and a note ending up in my mailbox? Either someone saw something that night, and they’re just too afraid to come out with it – or someone is setting me up. Maybe someone had wanted to set me up four years ago and it didn’t work; maybe I didn’t become a threat until I landed back on English soil.”

“Any guesses as to who that might be?”

Niall shakes his head. “Whoever found out about Harry and I, and told Zayn about it, I reckon.”

“Why?” Winston presses. “Why would someone want to not only kill Zayn, but set you up?”

“I don’t know,” Niall sighs. “But, again, that’s your job to figure out.”

“And why do you assume that this person found out about you and Styles, or that they told Zayn about it?”

“He had a photo of Harry and I,” Niall tells him. “And it hadn’t been taken by him. Someone gave it to him, and then he confronted me-”

“So let me get this straight,” Winston drawls. He leans forward, rests his arms on the bars separating them. “Someone found out about you and Styles. Then someone showed a picture of you and Styles to Zayn. And then someone followed Zayn back to your house, cut his brakes using your pipe cutter to make it look like you killed him for his boyfriend? Am I supposed to believe that that sounds more plausible than you killing Zayn because you were drunk, angry, and jealous?”

Whitehall pushes himself to his feet, glaring hard at Winston with his hands planted against the table. “We’re done here.”

“I didn’t kill Zayn,” Niall says. His stomach twists, and his heart gives a lurch – and he hates that it feels as if he’s trying harder to convince himself than anyone else.

“I guess we’ll see about that soon enough.”

Niall watches him. He stays standing until the detective is completely out of the room – until he knows that the detective won’t hear him. And then he lets himself sink to back down into the chair, and buries his face in his arms as he begins to cry. Sobs wrack his whole body, tears leave wet tracks all down his cheeks and sometimes it feels like he can’t breathe – but none of that feels more painful, or devastating, than the fact he actually might have killed his best friend.

A hand touches his shoulder, and only then does he remember that he isn’t alone. Jack Whitehall is there, looking at him somberly. Niall wonders, briefly, if Whitehall actually believes that he’s innocent or if he’s just simply doing his job – but then he reckons that he doesn’t actually want to know.

X

Niall stands with his arm draped over the top of the phone, forehead resting against his forearm. His heart feels like it’s taken up residence in his throat as he waits for Harry to pick up. (He doesn’t want to think about the fact he still knows Harry’s number by heart. Doesn’t want to acknowledge what it means; that he spent way too long, too many years, staring at his phone with Harry’s number splashed across the screen, willing himself not to call.)

“N-Niall?”

The relief dripping from Harry’s voice is about as palpable as the relief that Niall feels flooding his veins, washing over his body. Even when his voice is strained, Harry still sounds soothing to Niall’s ears. “Hi,” he murmurs.

“How are you?” Harry asks softly. “How are you calling me?”

“Turns out I can have more than one phone call if I ask nicely,” Niall replies, pointedly ignoring Harry’s first question. “I’m sure it helped that my solicitor was there.”

“Are you okay?”

Niall sighs. (In hindsight, he thinks he probably should have called Louis instead. Louis would ask less questions.) “I can’t talk for long, so I just- I need you to listen for a minute, yeah?”

“Y-Yeah, ‘course,” Harry whispers.

“Zayn had a picture with him,” Niall says. “It- It slipped my mind before, with everything going on, but- He had a picture with him the night he confronted me – threw it in my face.”

“What was the picture of?”

“Us. It was a picture of us snogging-“

“That’s impossible,” Harry interrupts. “We never- Nothing ever happened in public-“

“It did once,” Niall reminds him. “We just didn’t think anyone would be around.”

Harry remains silent, then. Niall can practically hear him thinking.

“We were at the Viaduct,” Niall whispers. “I couldn’t sleep, you couldn’t sleep, and-“

“I kissed you.”

“And I kissed you,” he murmurs, playing absentmindedly with his hair. “And someone was there – and maybe they followed you, or maybe they followed me, or maybe they were just there- But either way, someone took a picture of us and then showed it to Zayn.”

“Jesus,” Harry mumbles. “Do you- Do you know what happened to the picture?”

Niall shakes his head even though Harry can’t see him. “He must have taken it with him because I don’t remember seeing it after. Not that that means very much.”

“Niall-”

“I told Winston, but he didn’t seem very interested in it. My solicitor said that he would look into it, but who knows how long that’s going to take. So, if you’re still interested in helping-“

“Of course,” Harry says quickly. “Of course I am.”

“Then I think you should try and find that picture. Maybe try and find it before somebody else does.”

“I-I will,” Harry stutters. “I’ll find it, Niall.”

“Okay,” Niall whispers. He licks his lips, runs a hand through his hair. He wants to ask Harry if everyone is okay – if he is okay – but he reckons he already knows the answer to that.

“We’ll figure it out, Ni,” Harry murmurs softly. “I won’t let you go down for something you didn’t do-“

“Harry-“

“I mean it. We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” Niall breathes. “I, uh- I have to go. Just…take care, yeah?”

“Yeah. You too.”

Niall stays a moment, keeps the receiver against his ear and listens to dial tone even after Harry is long gone. He wishes the dial tone was still Harry’s voice.

X

“He had a photo,” Harry’s saying as he walks back into the living room, where Louis is lying draped across the sofa.

Louis sits up, looking confused. “What?”

“Zayn- Niall said that Zayn had a photo with him, said it was a picture – like, a picture of the two of us snogging.”

“Right, but we already knew that someone else knew,” Louis reminds him, eyebrows furrowed. “All that means is that whoever did know, took a photo as proof – probably so that Zayn would believe them.”

“They took the photo about a week before Zayn confronted Niall,” Harry tells him. “That means that someone had a whole week to tell Zayn, but they didn’t. They waited until that night. What if they waited, because they needed time to figure out how to set Niall up?”

Louis’ eyes narrow, then, like he’s deep in thought.

“And what if Zayn kept it?” Harry asks. “He must have left that night with the photo, because nobody else has seen it. Which means that it was probably in the box of stuff that the hospital gave to Trisha, right? I saw her about a year ago, and she was telling me that his room is still exactly how he left it, except that she put that box in his closet. She said she’s never had it in her to go through it because it would feel like she was going through the last moments of his life and it would be too much for her to handle.

“What if it’s in there? What if the police can get a fingerprint – or something – off of the photo itself?”

Louis grins. “Harry, you’re a fucking genius.”

“I need to go see Trisha. I need to try and find that picture-”

“Or, maybe- Maybe we should just tell that detective bloke,” Louis suggest. (Harry is a bit taken back by how logical he sounds.)

“Niall told him, as well as the solicitor the department appointed him,” Harry says. “I don’t think he trusts them. At least- I know he doesn’t trust Winston. The solicitor might follow up on it, but if he does – if either of them do – then it would probably be by the book, and who knows how long that would take. Niall doesn’t have that kind of time, not when he shouldn’t even be in there in the first place.” (He doesn’t stop to think about what it means that Niall had called him; doesn’t think about the fact that it means that, out of everyone, Niall might actually trust him the most, regardless of how hard he’s been fighting against even the briefest of contact with him. Or, at least, he tries not to think about it.)

“Should I come with you?”

Harry, shakes his head. They’re in the front hall now, and Harry’s shoving his feet into his boots as he prepares to leave. “No, this is probably something I need to do myself, you know? Plus, I should probably also talk to her about what’s been going on anyway. She’s obviously heard that Niall and I had had an affair, by now, so- I owe her some kind of an explanation.”

Louis’ hand wraps around his elbow as he turns to leave. “Briana will be back with Freddie soon, and Liam will be at work for a few more hours but- Call me, if you need me, yeah?”

Harry nods. “I will, Lou.”

++

_The hospital is quiet. Almost too quiet. (He almost prefers it when the doctors and nurses are busier, almost prefers things to be louder, because it makes for a great distraction from the morbid thoughts plaguing his mind._

_This is the first time he’s managed to stay longer than five minutes. It’s the first time he hasn’t made himself sick enough that he had to leave before even getting into the room._

_He’s standing in the hallway outside Zayn’s room, with his back against the wall and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jumper, when Trisha emerges – and he straightens up to greet her. She looks like she hasn’t slept, or eaten, or showered in days – and, truth be told, she probably hasn’t._

_She smiles when she sees him, though, albeit weakly. “Hiya, sweetheart,” she murmurs softly, as she pulls him for a tight, motherly hug._

_“How is he?”_

_Trisha shrugs as she pulls away. “He’s no worse, which I’ve decided to take as a good sign.”_

_“How are the girls holding up?”_

_“They’re hopeful,” she says, smiling weakly as she wraps her arms around her own thin frame. “They’ve always been pretty sure that Zayn is an actual superhero, so they’re confident that he’ll pull through.”_

_Harry wishes that he could possess their confidence. “Yaser?”_

_“He’s not so optimistic.”_

_“And you?”_

_She smiles sadly, brokenly – and he knows that she’s not okay. He knows that she’s barely hanging on, that she isn’t expecting for good things to happen despite the hope she clings to in her heart. “How are_ you _, darling?”_

_Harry shrugs, shoves his hands back into his pockets. “I don’t know,” he admits._

_“I was going to go down to get some tea, why don’t you go in? Talk to him, I’m sure he’d like to hear your voice.”_

_Every day that Harry has come before, which has been every day for the last week and a half, he’s stood outside of Zayn’s room, unable to cross the threshold. Today, however, he has to stay. He has to see Zayn, he has to talk to Zayn- He has to tell Zayn. He_ needs _to stay._

++

Trisha looks a bit taken aback when she answers the door and sees Harry standing in front of her. She stares at him for a moment, like she isn’t quite sure what to make of him being there.

“Hi,” he whispers, smiling softly.

She smiles back, but only briefly, before stepping aside to let him in. He leans in to kiss her cheek politely, and she lets him, but she doesn’t return it the way she would have a few weeks ago. She closes the door behind him as he toes off his boots, and then leads him around the corner, through the dining room and into the kitchen.

The house looks the same way it did four, five, six years ago. The only difference is that he used to spend more time here – so much so that it felt like a second home for a long while.

“Would you like some tea? Do you still like it black?”

“I’ll just have a glass of water, thanks,” he says softly. He’d offer to get it himself, the way he used to, if he didn’t feel so awkward about being here. It’s one thing to come see her when he knows she’s seen what the paper have said about him and Niall, but it’s another to come see her when he knows she’s seen all of that and then ask a favour of her.

She nods silently, and then turns away from him to fetch a tall glass out of the cupboard closest to the fridge. “So, is it true?” she asks softly, whilst turning the tap over the kitchen sink on. She waits briefly for the water to turn cold, before she fills it. “About you and Niall?”

Harry nods sheepishly. He tries to maintain eye contact as she turns back around to hand him the glass, but he fails; he ends up looking down at the water instead. His heart feels like it’s in his throat, as he anticipates her reaction. Is she going to cry? Is she going to scream? Is she going to hit him? He’d deserve all of it and more, probably.

“Why?”

“It just…happened,” he whispers. And then it’s like once he starts to explain, he can’t stop. “I know that’s a shit excuse for cheating on Zayn. I know it’s no excuse at all, really, it’s just… It’s hard to explain. We just- Had something, and I fell in love with him only to realize that he’d been in love with me for years before Zayn and I even got together. Once it happened the first time, it just kept happening – and, truthfully, we were both selfish in that neither one of us wanted it to end. And then Niall did end it, because Zayn had been planning to ask me to move in with him – and it was around that same time that I’d been finally thinking about telling Zayn the truth… I wanted to tell him about everything so badly, but I didn’t want to hurt him. And then- And then the accident happened, and…I never got the chance to apologize – at least not properly.”

Trisha looks surprisingly calm, for someone who has just had to hear her late son’s ex-boyfriend explain why (and how) he cheated. But, then again, she did bury her son four years, so perhaps it’s simply a matter of nothing hurting more than that. “Tell me it wasn’t Niall,” she says softly, a moment later. It sounds like she’s pleading.

“It wasn’t Niall. Niall would have never done anything like that.”

“Then why was he arrested?”

Harry sighs, placing his untouched glass of water on the counter next to him. “I think- I think someone is setting him up – and to make matters worse, Niall can only remember half of what happened that night, and he doesn’t remember Zayn leaving his house. He can’t remember not tampering with Zayn’s brakes, and I think the police have taken that to mean that he might have, even though he didn’t.”

“Why do you think that someone is setting him up?” Trisha asks, then. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just believe that Niall did do it?”

Harry shakes his head, “We both made mistakes, and Niall was…in a bit of a bad place after we broke up, but he isn’t a killer. He’d never have done that. I promise.”

“Who would have wanted to set him up, then? _Who_ would have wanted to kill my son?”

“That’s partly why I’m here,” Harry admits. He licks his lips nervously, pushes his hands into the front pockets of his trousers. “Niall told me that Zayn had a photo that night – one of him and I, and- Someone else had to have given him that photo, and it might be that someone else that’s been setting Niall up.”

Trisha’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why?” she demands, sounding skeptical.

“I don’t know. I just- I hope that if I can find the photo and present it to the police, then maybe they can at least find a fingerprint.”

She folds her arms over her chest as if she’s trying to hold herself together. “You want to see inside the box, don’t you?”

“Please,” he whispers.

Trisha hesitates. Tears are shining in her eyes and she’s biting on her bottom lip; she looks a bit torn. She looks a lot broken.

“Look, I know I don’t have a right to ask this of you – especially after everything that’s just come out,” he murmurs, running an unsteady hand through his hair. “But- Just- Regardless of how I feel about Niall, he doesn’t belong in prison for a crime he didn’t commit; the person who actually committed this crime does. And I think…I think Zayn deserves that too. I think he deserves a proper rest.”

She shakes her head, whilst staring out through the kitchen window.

“Would you like me to leave?”

“No. But before you go upstairs, there’s something I should tell you,” she says, a sad smile tugging at her lips as she looks at him. “The day he passed, while he was awake, he told me something – something I haven’t been able to piece together until just now, and truth be told, I’d sort of forgotten about it. Anyway, he told me to tell you that it was okay, and that he just wanted you and Niall to be happy.”

Harry blinks, because- What? He’d told Zayn while he was in a coma, sure, because the doctors had told him that Zayn would still be able to hear him and Harry had liked the idea of it, but- But he didn’t actually think it would work. Nor did he think that it would count for anything, even if Zayn had lived. Why would Zayn say that? Why would he want them to be happy, let alone happy _together_?

“Now I understand why,” she murmurs.

X

His stomach is in knots, his hands are shaking, and he’s mildly afraid that he might actually pass out, so he leans against the doorframe as he pushes the door open. It’s almost eerie how quiet it is, Trisha having left him to it alone.

Walking into the room is like walking straight into his past. The bed, the side table, the desk, the dresser, the rugs on the floor (one in front of the bed, on in front of the dresser) – they’re all in exactly the same place they’d been the last time Harry was here. It’s been four years since Harry has stepped foot in here, and everything is exactly the same. He’d expected it, and yet here he is still taken aback. It feels a bit more eerie now, with how familiar it feels to be here.

He walks into the room slowly, tentatively. He knows that there isn’t a reason to hesitate, but it still feels- Odd. Being here, knowing he’s going to be going through Zayn’s old things- It’s odd. It’s a bit uncomfortable, honestly. The last time he was here, Zayn had been alive. Zayn had kissed him, told him he loved him, talked about the kind of flat he’d hoped to live in when they went away to uni despite the fact that Harry still hadn’t given him an answer. And now here he is, and he’s about to rifle through some of Zayn’s stuff – and he feels guilty, feels like he’s invading Zayn’s privacy.

But he has to. He needs to. And he’s sure – surer now than he had been before, thanks to Trisha (whom owes him absolutely nothing) – that Zayn would want him to.

So he does.

He finds the box exactly where Trisha said it would be; on the floor, tucked into the back of Zayn’s closet. (The clothes, hanging off hangers that haven’t been touched in years, still smell like him. It makes Harry’s stomach flip over.) The flaps are folded and tucked into each other so as to keep the box closed. His chest feels tight as he bends over to pick it up. The box is lighter than he thought it’d be, and something about that makes his chest feel tight.

He carries it towards the other side of the room, sets it down on the desk and takes a deep breath – a vain attempt at calming his nerves – before he pulls open the flaps.

The first thing he sees is Zayn’s old, beige Adidas jumper, folded on top of everything else; the lingering smell of Zayn’s cologne is stale, but it still makes his heart clench. Underneath the jumper, in no particular order, are: the snapback Zayn used to keep in the back seat of the car, a pair of sunglasses, his keychain, some CD’s – that are still in fairly good condition, given the accident – and his wallet. There’s no photograph lying in the bottom of the box, but there is what looks like the bottom of a polaroid sticking out the top of Zayn’s wallet.

His breath catches in his throat, because that must be _it_ \- Right? It has to be.

His hands are shaking as he sets the wallet down on the desk. His legs feel a bit shaky too, so he rolls the chair closer to sit down. (He makes a mental note to put the chair back too before he leaves.) He sits, with his elbows resting atop the desk and runs a hand through his hair.

He doesn’t want to look. Doesn’t want to _see_ what Zayn saw that night; doesn’t want to see what made him so angry and hurt that he confronted _Niall_ about it. But he has to. _He needs to._

So he does. He plucks the polaroid out quickly, before he can change his mind. And, sure enough, it’s a picture of him and Niall at the Viaduct, just as Niall had told him. It’s just a tiny bit blurry, and the lighting isn’t all that great, but it’s obviously Harry and it’s obviously Niall – and they’re obviously snogging. They’re wrapped up in each other, clinging to each other – Niall’s hand tight in Harry’s hair, Harry’s twisted in the fabric of Niall’s shirt – like nobody else was around despite the obvious fact that somebody had been.

Harry’s stomach feels sick looking at it, knowing that Zayn had seen it. And knowing how it made him feel – knowing that it had made him feel hurt and angry enough to get violent with Niall, makes him feel guiltier than he’s felt in a long time. It’s this horrible, ugly, gross feeling that wells up inside of him, leaves a foul taste in his mouth and makes him wish he could burn it all away. He wants the ground to swallow him whole.

What’s worse is that he remembers the night it was taken rather vividly, and a sense of longing washes over him even now – which makes him feel even more horrible and ugly and gross. He hadn’t been able to sleep for days, weeks if he were to get technical, and he’d been awake for so long that night, tossing and turning, that it had begun to make him feel anxious. He’d snuck out of the house to take a walk, to try and clear his head with no destination in mind – and then there he was, and there was Niall. Niall, who looked just as tired and restless as Harry had felt. Niall, who had tried to smile all week long but only wound up looking more sad.

He knows he should have left. He knows he should have just turned around and walked away – knows that Niall wouldn’t have tried to stop him anyway, but he was weak and he was tired and… It was _Niall_.

He strokes his thumb over the face of the polaroid once, twice- And that’s when he sees it. There’s a mark in the photo itself that almost looks like a smudge, likely caused by a glitch in the camera if the lack of physical corruption to the polaroid is anything to go by.

And the thing is, Harry recognizes it. He’s seen that same smudge in other photographs.

The realization sends a literal chill down his spine. It’s ice cold and burning hot at the same time. He feels dizzy with it, and sicker than before because of it and he doesn’t- He-

He pushes himself to his feet, stuffs the polaroid into the back pocket of his jeans, places everything else back into the box and folds it back up before placing it back in the closet where he found it. And then he’s gone, walking briskly down the stairs and straight towards the front door. He almost doesn’t hear Trisha ask him if he’s found anything, and can’t bring himself to utter more than, “Yeah, I have to go,” before he’s back behind the wheel of his car.


	13. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They always warn you, don’t they? Not to fall in love with the pretty ones…” he finds himself whispering, more to himself than to her, as he stares up at his bedroom ceiling. He’s spent, and tired, and drunk- So drunk. So drunk that he sort of already expects not to remember this in the morning anyway.
> 
> She tilts her head as she looks up at him, her blue eyes shining in the moonlight seeping through the crack between his curtains. Her red lips are practically glowing too. “Do they now?”
> 
> He sighs. “Every rose has it’s thorn. And then a guy like Harry fucking Styles comes along, and you think… ‘Nothing that beautiful and sweet can hurt me.’ You think it’s impossible. You think he loves you too, so of course he’d never hurt you.”

_“They always warn you, don’t they? Not to fall in love with the pretty ones…”_

Niall wakes with a start. It’s the middle of the day, only a couple hours after his interrogation with Winston, but with nothing else to do inside of a small cell in the police station, Niall’s found himself dozing off and waking up at all hours throughout the day. This time, he’d been woken up by his own voice.

It sounds an awful lot like a memory, but he doesn’t know where to place it.

_“Do they now?”_ a girl’s voice says, then, in the back of his mind. He recognizes it, feels like he’s heard it recently, even, but he can’t place that either.

Niall finds himself sitting up, pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead in a vain attempt to make the pounding in his temples go away.

_“And then a guy like Harry fucking Styles comes along, and everything you know goes to shit…”_

Fuck- Fuck, fuck, fuck.

_“Every rose has its thorns,”_ he thinks – or, says. Has said. And- Fuck. He knows what that means. He can’t pinpoint _exactly_ what it means, but he knows that he knows. He knows he’s not imagining it. It’s something he told someone once – something he told a girl… But when?

_“You think you know what you’re doing. You think you know what you’re getting yourself into. You think you can handle it, because roses prick everyone, but there’s always one that hurts more – one that hurts the most. One you can’t handle no matter how hard you try._

_“And it’s not his fault. Roses don’t mean to hurt you. He just- Does. And you should’ve learned your lesson anyway, or maybe you did but it isn’t enough to keep you away. So, really, it’s your own fault if the rose hurts you, because you’re the one that touched it.”_

He pushes himself to his feet, yells out for the guard sitting behind the desk at the end of the hallway. His head is pounding, and the lighting above is too bright, and he knows – he knows what happened, he just needs to talk to Winston. There’s a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach, then, and an even sharper pain in his temples, and then everything goes black.

++

_They’re 10 years old, walking towards the field behind the school. School has just let out, and they always meet Louis and Liam to play footie after – or, well, Niall always meets Louis and Liam to play footie while Harry pretends to watch. The school is a good mid-point between all of their houses._

_They’re halfway there when a lad neither one of them have spoken to – yet – approaches them from behind. He’s the new kid, just started at school last week having moved here from Bradford._

_“Hey, um, you don’t know me, but I’m Zayn,” the boy says, smiling rather shyly. He has his book bag draped over one shoulder, and he's carrying what looks like a sketchbook in the other arm._

_“I’m Harry,” he says kindly, smiling softly. “This is Niall.”_

_Zayn smiles and nods at Niall, who nods back._

_“I just- I drew these, and I wanted to give them to you,” Zayn murmurs. He rips one page out of his sketchbook and gives it to Harry, then rips a second one out and gives it to Niall. They’re drawings of each of them – Harry, with his nose shoved into a book; Niall, standing with his arms crossed over his chest in a footie uniform. Niall is sort of shocked by how good they are, considering he can barely even draw stick people._

_“Wow,” Harry breathes. “These are brilliant!”_

_“Yeah,” Niall agrees, grinning widely. “You’re really good, mate.”_

_Zayn blushes, kicks absentmindedly at the ground beneath his feet. “Thanks.”_

_“You gonna be an artist some day?” Niall asks._

_“Someday, maybe.”_

_“Reckon you should be, mate.”_

_“Thanks.”_

_“Do you want to come to the field with us?” Harry asks, then. “Niall’s gonna play some footie with some of the lads that play there, so you can play if you want?”_

_Zayn scrunches his nose. “Don’t really play sports, if I can help it.”_

_“Me too,” Harry laughs. “’m way too clumsy. Niall tried to get me to play once and it didn’t end well.”_

_“Got himself a concussion after tripping over his own feet, this little Bambi did,” Niall says, rolling his eyes. It’s dramatic, the way he does it, and not at all serious. Truth be told, he’d been so worried that he’d begged the paramedic to let him ride in the back of the ambulance to meet his parents at the hospital. “Haven’t let him back onto the field since.”_

_Harry rolls his eyes right back, despite the fond smile playing on his lips. “He’s overprotective.”_

_“’m smart, is what I am. Besides, Anne would kill me if I did,” he points out. Then he turns to Zayn and says, “Anne’s his mum.”_

_“Anyway- You can come, if you want. I usually just read until we have to go home for dinner.”_

_Niall scoffs. “And here I thought your cheers every time I score were genuine.”_

_“They are,” Harry insists. “I’m happy you score.”_

_“You just don’t see it,” Niall concludes for him, almost like he’s always known._

_Harry grins and nods, and looks at Zayn once more. “What d’you say?”_

_Zayn smiles. “Yeah, alright- I’ll tag along.”_

X

_Niall’s in the kitchen, fetching snacks for the hooligans that are downstairs in the basement playing video games – right now, he can hear Liam and Louis bickering over Super Mario, when Zayn comes in. They’ve been hanging out all afternoon, and Bobby has left them to their own devices so, needless to say, crisps and dips it’s going to be._

_“Hey.”_

_“Hey, mate,” Niall says, and then promptly hands him a bowl full of crisps._

_“So, I’ve not been able to tell you before now, but I wanted to apologize if I weirded you out before,” Zayn says casually._

_Niall’s brows furrow in confusion as he reaches into the fridge for the dip. “Weirded me out how?”_

_“By drawing a picture of you,” Zayn says rather sheepishly. “I just- I got the vibe that you were a little weirded out, compared to Harry.”_

_Niall laughs, “No, mate, I wasn’t weirded out. I just… Okay, I was a little bit weirded out, but- It’s cool, mate.”_

_“We’re good then, yeah?”_

_“’Course.”_

_“ZAYN! NIALL!” Harry shouts, skidding into the kitchen. He nearly falls flat on his face, but then Zayn catches him with a hand in his jumper. “Louis’ got Liam in a headlock. Again.”_

_“That’s your cue, Zee,” Niall says, snickering in amusement. “I’ll never understand how Louis always gets the upper hand.”_

_“Because Liam is an actual teddy bear, and Louis is a menace,” Harry says firmly._

_“Duty calls,” Zayn sighs as he heads back to the basement._

_Harry turns to Niall the moment Zayn is out of earshot, grabs his shoulder before he begins to follow. “So, is everything okay now?”_

_Niall looks at him, confused. “What do you mean?”_

_“Zayn’s been feeling like you don’t really like him.”_

_“Oh…”_

_“I told him that it wasn’t true, but- He just wasn’t sure.”_

_“I do like Zayn,” Niall insists. “He’s cool.”_

_Harry grins from ear-to-ear. “I knew it. You’re too nice not to like anybody.”_

X

_It’s half ten on a school night, and Niall’s just finished brushing his teeth, is about to strip down to his briefs and crawl into bed, when there’s a series of tapping sounds at his bedroom window. It sounds like pebbles – and that’s how he knows that it isn’t Harry; Harry has long since stopped being cheeky about tossing pebbles at his window and has taken to climbing the trellis against the wall outside to get onto the roof before inviting himself through the window. (Niall reckons it’s partially his fault, given that he keeps leaving the window unlocked.)_

_Upon walking to the window and throwing back the curtains, Niall finds that he’s right. It’s Zayn. Zayn, who looks like he’s been crying._

_“Can I come in?” Zayn calls up to him softly._

_“Yeah, ‘course,” Niall says. “I’ll be down in a minute.”_

_It takes less than a minute to reach the back door and let Zayn inside._

_Zayn is quiet – always has been. But he’s been twice as quiet recently and, well, Niall can’t really blame him, can he?_

_“They fightin’ again?” Niall asks softly, pulls out a chair at the dining room table for Zayn to slide into before he, himself, slides onto another._

_“Constantly,” Zayn mutters, fiddling absentmindedly with his fingers. “Sometimes the thought of them breaking up makes me feel sick y’know? But then sometimes I wonder if it would be best for everyone if they did.”_

_Niall shrugs. “Maybe they’re just- Having a rough go, y’know? Maybe they’ll work it out.”_

_“Or maybe they’ll get divorced. Like yours, like Harry’s-“_

_“You gotta have faith, mate,” Niall says softly._

_“Did you?”_

_“I was too young to really understand at the time, to be fair.”_

_Zayn sighs. “So was Harry.”_

_Niall reaches forward, places his hand over Zayn’s and rubbing over the top with his thumb. “I’m sorry, mate. I wish I could- I wish there was something I could do.”_

_Zayn shrugs, smiles weakly. “You already let me stay here whenever I need to. ‘s good enough for me, Nialler.”_

_Niall smiles softly, pushes himself to his feet. “C’mon, I’ve got a spare pillow you can use.”_

X

_The first time he noticed, it was Harry’s 13th birthday._

_About half of their class was gathered at Harry’s house for the occasion, on February 1st, to play some games out in the snow and eat pizza and cake and watch movies and yet, through watching Harry virtually all night – to make sure he’d been having a good time, is all, mostly – Niall had noticed that Harry sort of only had eyes for Zayn. Every time Zayn spoke, Harry looked at him; every time Zayn smiled, Harry smiled, even if it was to nobody in particular; every time Zayn laughed, Harry would get the goofiest look on his face._

_And Niall hadn’t been an idiot, then, he’d reckoned that the only thing missing were literal hearts floating about in Harry’s gaze that day. (The thought sort of made him nauseous.)_

_A few months later, the five of them had gone to the cinema, and Niall had sat in the middle, with Liam and Louis on one side of him, and Harry and Zayn on the other._

_He’d spent only half of the time watching the movie itself, and the remaining time watching Harry glance fondly at Zayn every few minutes out of the corner of his eye. (His chest hurt because of how sad the movie was, honest.)_

_And now here they are, about a year later, and Niall has just gotten a goal on Liam – and as he looks towards the stands on the other side of the field to seek out Harry’s gaze and watch the brunet cheer for him, because he always does, Niall is faced with it again._

_His breath catches in his throat, and his chest feels a bit tight, and his stomach feels like it literally flips over as he takes in the sight before him. It shouldn’t make him feel this way. They’re friends, and at the end of the day that’s (still) all they are – and he shouldn’t feel this jealous._

_And yet he does, because Harry isn’t watching him play the way he always had. Because Harry hasn’t really been cheering for him all game, the way he always had, and he isn’t celebrating Niall’s goal from the sidelines the way he always has._

_Instead, Harry is watching Zayn._

_And Niall knows exactly why._

X

_He thought he could handle it. He thought he could deal with the whole Harry-and-Zayn thing. He thought he’d prepared himself._

_He’d thought wrong, evidently._

_And here he is, amidst Louis and Liam and Zayn and Harry, walking down the corridor, and Niall wants to look away from where Harry and Zayn are holding hands between their bodies because the sight of it makes him feel sick – but he can’t. He just- Can’t._

_He thinks he should be happy for them, like Louis and Liam. He thinks that he should feel as supportive as he tries to be, pretends to be. But all he feels is jealousy; all-consuming, gut-wrenching jealousy because Harry has Zayn and Zayn has, well,_ everything _._

_Harry and Niall have maths class together after lunch, which is on the way to Zayn’s art class – which, in turn, is on the way to Liam’s and Louis’ history class. They take this route every day. And every day, they stop just outside the door to say goodbye. And every day, at least since Harry-and-Zayn became a real thing, Zayn leans in to kiss Harry._

_And just like every other day, Niall has to look away. Has to stuff his hands into the pockets of his jumper to keep them shaking. Has to force himself to breathe deeply, calmly through his nose. Has to will himself not to actually be sick all over his high tops._

_He thought he’d be able to handle this and, well, yeah- He was wrong, wasn’t he?_

X

_“I mean, I don’t know- Take him to a concert, or something,” Niall mutters as he kicks his feet up onto the coffee table._

_It takes everything in him not to roll his eyes because, well, it isn’t really Harry’s fault that he’s oblivious, is it? (It probably is.) It’s just that his and Zayn’s anniversary is a week away and Harry wants Niall’s help trying to plan it. He’d tried to opt out, tried to use the excuse that he’s never had to plan an anniversary date before so he doesn’t even know what the bloody hell he’s doing, but Harry is rather persuasive. (Especially when he bats his eyelashes, because it goes straight to the pit of Niall's stomach and brings the butterflies to life.)_

_Harry makes a face as he falls, quite literally, onto the sofa next to Niall. He swings one leg around to throw it over the arm, and plops his head down on Niall’s lap. “We don’t really like each other’s music.” (That would be a perfect date for Harry and Niall.)_

_Niall sighs, because of course they don’t. (It takes everything in him not to point out cheekily that doing something music related for a date would be perfect for the two of them. They’ve always loved the same kind of music, and have made a pact that if The Rolling Stones ever go on tour again that they’ll both go together.) “Take him on a boat for a picnic,” he says instead. He cards a hand through Harry’s hair absentmindedly._

_“He hates boats. And he can’t swim.” (Niall loves boats. And he loves swimming.)_

_“Take him to the park for a picnic, then.”_

_Harry shakes his head. “We did that a few months ago, and I’m pretty sure he hated it. He doesn’t like the whole eating-on-the-ground thing.” (Niall loves picnics.)_

_“Do a game night, or something. You’ve got_ Scrabble _, and I could lend you some board games. I think_ Life _is kickin’ around here somewhere.”_

_Harry shrugs. “He’s not really the board game type. He gets…bored.”_

_Niall snorts._

_“Pun not intended, but I’ll take it,” the brunet smirks._

_The blond does roll his eyes this time. “Then… I don’t know what to tell you, mate.”_

_Harry groans, pushes himself so that he’s sitting up properly and rests the back of his head against the back cushion of the sofa. “I just- I wanna do something different, y’know? I’m tired of just going to movies or dinner and then getting laid- I mean, I’m not tired of shagging, I just – want to do something different before that.”_

_“Don’t think I’m the bloke to be making suggestions,” Niall mutters. He hates the way his chest aches, like there’s this constant, continuous pain in his chest._

_“Why not?”_

‘Because I’m in love with you and don’t want to think about you shagging or dating anyone else, ever,’ _goes unsaid. Instead, Niall shrugs, “I’ve just…never celebrated an anniversary before.”_

_Harry laughs. “Dating you would be so much easier. Just have to take you to see any random band, and that’s it.”_

_“Too bad you aren’t dating me, then,” slips out of Niall’s mouth before he can stop it. He blinks, taken aback by his own…joke, and swallows hard around the sudden lump in his throat as he awaits Harry’s response._

_“Now you tell me,” Harry teases, reaching out to pinch at Niall’s hipbone. “Not like you’d have dated me anyway.”_

_Niall’s brow arches in confusion. “Why do you think that?”_

_“I’m not your type.”_

_“What’s my type?”_

_Harry smirks. “Girls.”_

_Niall freezes. And then he blinks, taken aback even more so than before because- What? If only Harry knew… “I never said that, mate,” he finds himself whispering._

_Harry looks a bit shocked as he stares. “I mean- Are you not..?”_

_It’s not that Niall isn’t, or hasn’t been, attracted to girls. He’s actually, on occasion, been attracted to girls and boys. It’s just that lately he hasn’t been attracted to anyone other than, well, Harry. “I have to go,” he mutters, pushing himself to his feet. He doesn’t much feel like explaining, especially to Harry. “I told Bobby I’d meet him at the shop directly after school, and I’m already late.”_

_Harry looks like he wants to protest, but he doesn’t._

X

_“How many kids do you want?”_

_Niall glances down at Harry, whose head is resting on Niall’s bare stomach, his curls splayed out messily across Niall’s damp skin. He can’t tell if the state of Harry’s hair is more due to the fact that Niall has a thing for playing with his hair during sex, or if it’s more of a result of Niall playing with it in the moments after. Either way- He looks at Harry to find Harry looking up at him, bright eyes wide with curiosity. “Two,” Niall replies, smiling softly. “Except closer together in age than Greg and I- Like, you and Gemma. You?”_

_Harry smirks. “As many as I’m allowed.”_

_The blond laughs, rolls his eyes fondly as he continues to card his fingers through his hair._

_“Do you want to live in the city, or on the outskirts? Or in the country?” Harry asks, then._

_“The outskirts,” Niall says. “Close enough to the city that the commute isn’t too long, but far enough to have peace and quiet.”_

_“Me too,” the brunet murmurs. “I quite like the idea of London. Like, right on the edge of the city somewhere, y’know?”_

_Niall hums; reckons he doesn’t need to say that he feels the same way because Harry probably already knows._

_“Zayn wants to live in the city.”_

_Niall freezes. His hand stops moving, his breath catches in his throat, his stomach flips over, and- He pushes gently at Harry’s shoulder to get him to move as he pushes himself up._

_“I’m sorry,” Harry says quickly, urgently. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t- It just came out, I didn’t mean to say that. I’m sorry.” He stops Niall before he can get up from the bed, curls one arm around Niall’s shoulder and across his chest, and the other around his waist. He presses a kiss against Niall’s shoulder, and then against his neck, and then behind his ear as he molds himself against Niall’s back.. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, hooking his chin over Niall’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean it.”_

_And Niall knows that, he does. He knows that Harry doesn’t mean to make Niall uncomfortable, and he knows that sometimes Harry doesn’t think before he speaks. He also knows that it’s partially his own fault, though, which is why he lets himself lean back against Harry’s chest. This thing between them- It’s complicated._

_Niall sighs as he rests his head back against Harry’s shoulder, hums when Harry presses another kiss against his neck. “Old fashioned, or modern?”_

_Harry pauses for a moment, like he’s thinking, as he nuzzles his nose into the crook of Niall’s neck. “A tasteful mixture of both,” he replies softly. “Old-fashioned with a modern twist.”_

_Niall, snorts. “I’m not sure that exists.”_

_“We’ll make it exist, then,” Harry shrugs._

_It's like Niall forgets how to breathe as he looks over his shoulder, gaze searching Harry’s. They don’t talk about the future very often. In fact, these back-and-forth questions have been an exception. It’s even rarer, though, that either of them talk about their future – whether they be together or apart. Thinking about it, however, well- Niall thinks about it all the time. And now he doesn’t have to wonder, much, if Harry thinks about it too._

_Harry kisses him, then, and it’s like the whole world melts away from him._

X

_She has a name. He knows she has a name, and he knows that he should know it, considering she just told him what it is but a half an hour ago, at least – and yet he’s drawing a blank. She’s pretty, and she’s enthusiastic, and she’s a bit tipsy, and Niall just wishes he could remember her name. It’s the decent thing to do, after all, isn’t it? Especially since she’s been flirting with him for a good 20 minutes, and he’s been more or less letting her._

_He’s been letting her, and yet his mind has been almost entirely on something – or someone – else. Which, in hindsight, is probably why he can’t remember her name._

_He feels Harry’s gaze on him before he even sees him; looks up over the girl’s shoulder to meet from across the room, where Harry’s standing next to a tall blond-haired girl amongst a few of his photography friends._

_Harry gives him a barely there nod, but Niall sees it the way he’s intended to anyway – and then Harry walks away. Niall leans in, then, and whispers gently into the girl’s ear; he tells her that he’ll be right back, and then follows in the direction Harry had left in._

_He finds Harry in the kitchen, mixing another drink from alcohol he’d gotten out of the fridge. He’s alone, as the kitchen is strangely empty, and Zayn’s off with Louis and his cousin smoking a joint out by the pool._

_“What’s she like?” Harry asks. His voice is dripping with jealousy despite how hard he tries to hide it._

_Niall shrugs, leans a hip against the counter. “She’s nice.”_

_“Do you like her.”_

_“I mean, I dunno- I don’t really know her, do I?”_

_“Are you…gonna do anything with her?”_

_And- That’s where Niall draws the line with this interrogation. Who is_ he _to be jealous anyway? “I don’t know,” he snaps. “Don’t really see why I shouldn’t though, if I’m honest.”_

_Harry frowns, lifts his gaze to look at Niall. “I don’t want you to.”_

_Niall rolls his eyes. “Well, you don’t get to decide that, Harry.”_

_“Niall-“_

_“Not when your boyfriend is literally right outside, and I know you’re going home with him.”_

_Harry opens his mouth to protest, but then closes it immediately. He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth as he looks away._

_“This is so messed up,” Niall mutters._

_This is the first time they’ve ever gone through this. Harry has never been jealous before – at least, not like this. But then, Niall has never really given him a reason to be jealous like this before. The ironic part is that Niall hasn’t even been trying._

_It’s just that things have been incredibly tense between them lately, and Niall has been sort of bitter about it._

_“I know,” Harry sighs. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t- I just… I’m just being honest, and I don’t want you to.”_

_Niall sighs loudly, shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “Then what do you want, Harry? What do you want from me, exactly?”_

_Harry looks like he wants to reply, like he has an answer on the tip of his tongue. But then he looks away, and Niall thinks they’re probably thinking the same thing: What is he supposed to say? Harry has Zayn. Harry is_ with _Zayn. He doesn’t get to be jealous. He doesn’t get to tell Niall that he can’t see – or sleep with – anyone else. He doesn’t get to have an opinion on what Niall does, or doesn’t do, when Harry isn’t around._

_Right?_

_Niall swallows hard around the lump in his throat, ignores the way the butterflies in the pit of his stomach are making him feel sick now. “I’ll see you later.”_

_Later, when the party dies down and everyone begins to disappear, Harry does leave with Zayn._

_Niall leaves alone._

X

_There’s blond, curly hair, tangled in his fingers. And red lipstick, smudged across both of their lips._

_There’s a wall, and then another, and then a doorframe – and Niall has to take the hand away from her arse to grab a hold of the wall so they don’t wind up on the floor. And there are clothes, pooling on the floor at their feet, and bodies touching and grinding, and fingers intertwining, and smooth,_ smooth _skin, and hot,_ hot _heat._

_And then there’s climax and release and… And silence. And awkwardness._

_And Niall doesn’t want to look at her, doesn’t want to acknowledge her. Nor does he know how, because he doesn’t really know her; he hasn’t really talked to her. She’s nice, he’s heard, and she’s really pretty, and he’s seen her talking to Harry outside of their photography class, been introduced once, but- He doesn’t really have anything to talk to her about, except maybe Harry._

Harry _, who’s the main reason he’s even here, now, with her._

_“They always warn you, don’t they? Not to fall in love with the pretty ones…” he finds himself whispering, more to himself than to her, as he stares up at his bedroom ceiling. He’s spent, and tired, and drunk- So drunk. So drunk that he sort of already expects not to remember this in the morning anyway._

_She tilts her head as she looks up at him, her blue eyes shining in the moonlight seeping through the crack between his curtains. Her red lips are practically glowing too. “Do they now?”_

_He sighs. “Every rose has it’s thorn. And then a guy like_ Harry fucking Styles _comes along, and you think… ‘Nothing that beautiful and sweet can hurt me.’ You think it’s impossible. You think he loves you too, so of course he’d never hurt you.”_

_She hums. Draws invisible shapes into his skin._

_“And then he does, because it’s inevitable. It’s just- You think you know what you’re doing. You think you know what you’re getting yourself into. You think you can handle it, because roses prick everyone, but there’s always one that hurts more – one that hurts the most. One you can’t handle no matter how hard you try._

_“And it’s not his fault. Roses don’t mean to hurt you. He just- Does. And you should’ve learned your lesson anyway, or maybe you did but it isn’t enough to keep you away. So, really, it’s your own fault if the rose hurts you, because you’re the one that touched it.”_

_“Yeah,” she whispers, pressing a kiss against his jaw. “I know exactly what you mean.”_

X

_He’s three pints down, it’s 8 o’clock, and he’s more than a bit tipsy when the doorbell rings._

_His parents are gone, having left for the pub for a few beers with their mates. Louis and Liam and Zayn have gone, or at least will be going, to a house party – a barbeque in celebration of their graduating class. Harry is spending the evening with his mum. And Niall, well- He hasn’t exactly been in the mood for company lately, so drinking alone is about as much fun as he’s going to have tonight._

_The thing is, he really just wants to disappear for awhile._

_The doorbell – or, rather, the person on the other side of the door, however, has other plans._

_He comes face to face with a girl who’s all blond hair and blue eyes and red lips. He doesn’t know her personally, but he recognizes her as Taylor Swift._

_“Hi!” she greets him brightly, smiling softly._

_“Uh, hi,” he greets back. He doesn’t mean for it to sound awkward, it’s just that she’s literally the last person he would have ever expected to find standing on his doorstep on a Friday night._

_“This,” Taylor says, lifting her hand – within which is a bottle of Jameson, “is for you.”_

_Niall blinks, taken aback. “Oh. Thank you,” he mutters, taking the bottle into his own hand as she holds it out for him. “Um, why?”_

_She shrugs, flicks her hair back over her shoulder. “I mean, you’re Irish,” she giggles. “I got it as a graduation present a couple of weeks ago but it’s too strong for me. You’re the first person I thought of because, well-“_

_“Irish,” Niall concludes, smirking._

_“Oh, also- I can’t believe I almost forgot,” Taylor murmurs, reaching into the right front pocket of her shorts. She pulls out a small memory card and then holds it out for him to take. “It’s Harry’s.”_

_Niall’s brows furrow in confusion._

_“It must have fallen out of his camera bag and into mine, somehow, during class a few weeks ago. At least, I think it’s his. I haven’t looked at pictures or anything to make sure, but maybe you could? I just know that he’d mentioned missing one when I ran into him the other day, and I just found it today. I’d give it to him myself, but I figured you’d probably see him before I did anyway.”_

_Niall nods. “Yeah, I’ll- I can give it to him. Thanks.”_

_She smiles, tucking a strand that has fallen loose from her ponytail behind her ear. “Thank_ you _. Enjoy the Jameson. Hey- You could even bring it to Ed’s party tonight.”_

_“I’m not going to that, actually.”_

_She blinks like she’s taken aback, looks at him with familiar, doe-like eyes. “Oh. How come? I mean, you’ve clearly already started,” she says, gesturing to the beer bottle he’d forgotten he’d been holding in his hand that isn’t holding the bottle of Jameson. “Actually, never mind. It’s not really any of my business, is it?”_

_Niall shrugs. “’m just not really up for the party scene at the minute,” he says lightly._

_“Well, I’ll be there if you change your mind so come say hello,” she tells him with a soft smile._

_Niall nods even though he knows he won’t be going, and waves as she all but struts away._

X

_He tries not to look. He does._

_If it’s Harry’s, and it probably is, then that’s an invasion of privacy, right? Hell, it’s an invasion of privacy no matter who it belongs to._

_Although, on the other hand, if it’s Harry’s then…it’s kind of okay, isn’t it? Half of them are more than likely of him anyway, so it’s not that much of an invasion of privacy after all. Right?_

_It’s that thought, the thought that there are probably several photos of him on the memory card anyway, that does it. He’s four beers in when he grabs his laptop. He inserts the memory card, waits for it to load – and then takes a deep, shaky breath before he opens the file._

_The photos appear as thumbnails. There are nature shots, and building shots, and artistic candid shots of people around town, and animal shots, and shots of the boys, and of Zayn, and of Niall, and- Of them; of_ Niall and Harry _._

_He uses the mouse to click on the first photo of him and Harry to enlarge it before he even realizes that his hand has moved._

_He recognizes the photo – or, rather, the moment during which the photo was taken – immediately. It was taken nearly two months ago, on one of the last nights they’d spent together before Niall had broken things off._

_Picturesque Niall and Harry are lying in Niall’s bed, bodies bare but they’re only visible from the shoulders up. Harry had been trying to take a picture of them while simultaneously pretending he was asleep – only all five photos he’d tried to take had turned out too blurry to keep. Eventually, Niall had taken the camera from him, called himself the “selfie king”. He’d held the camera up high above them, looked straight into the lens, counted to three, and then clicked the button. Harry had tackled him to get possession of the camera back, then; had pinned Niall to the bed by straddling his hips to look at the picture himself first – and then he’d refused to let Niall see it._

_And now he thinks he might now know why because it’s written all over their faces, but all over Harry’s more so._

_Photo Harry is looking up at Niall with soft, loving eyes and flushed cheeks and damp hair. Niall is all too familiar with the look in Harry’s eyes, recognizes it as that all too-consuming feeling of being in love. Niall has felt it – has looked at Harry exactly like it; like he’s hung all the stars in the sky – every day for most of his life. And it’s not that he’s never known that Harry felt it too, at least to some degree, it’s just that, well, he’d never really seen it – at least not like_ this.

_His chest aches, like his heart is literally breaking apart, as he stares. His stomach churns, and his mouth feels like sandpaper. He feels sick. He feels weak. He feels like he’s either going to be sick or pass out or maybe even both. Tears sting the backs of his eyes as he reaches out with a shaky hand to close the laptop, whilst his other hand brings his beer bottle to his lips. He downs the last swig in seconds as he pushes himself to his feet._

_He needs something more. Something harder. Something that will burn from the tip of his tongue to the pit of his stomach. Something that will, hopefully, make him forget._

_Hopefully, though, he’ll remember to thank Taylor again for the Jameson the next time he sees her._

X

_“Stop!” Niall hears himself shout. His voice is strained even to his own ears. “Zayn , please, just-“ The back of his head slamming against the floor cuts him off. He winces, and he gasps, grabs at Zayn’s hands and fingers in a feeble attempt to get his friend to let go of Niall’s collar. “PLEASE, just let me explain,” he begs. “Please stop and just let me explain.”_

_Zayn does stop, eventually; he slams Niall’s back against the floor, and then promptly holds him there with his fists balled around the fabric of Niall’s shirt with his knuckles pressed slightly against Niall’s throat. His eyes are wet, and he’s panting, as he stares down at Niall angrily, heartbrokenly._

_Niall blinks, gasps for air. “I-I’m sorry,” he whimpers._

_The dark-haired boy’s jaw clenches. He bites at his bottom lip, and shakes his head as he pushes himself back until he’s sitting on the floor next to where Niall’s lying, with his back against the wall. He looks defeated._

_Niall breathes deeply, pushes himself up until his back against the opposite wall. “Please let me explain,” he whispers._

_“You’re my best friend- Or, you were my best friend,” Zayn mutters. “And you spent the last how many months fucking my boyfriend? What else is there to explain?”_

_“Zayn-“_

_“Get me a glass of whatever you’ve been drinking.”_

_Niall nods. And then he’s pushing himself to his feet, and Zayn is following him into the kitchen. He pours two glasses on the rocks, leaves the bottle open between them on the counter and then hands Zayn a glass._

_His heart feels like it’s in his stomach and his stomach feels like it’s in his throat – both at the same time. He takes a sip, revels in how it burns, and then places his glass on the counter. “You know how I feel about him, Zee,” he whispers, staring down at the amber liquid. “You_ know _that I’ve always been in love with him. This wasn’t- It wasn’t some plot to, like, steal him from you, or something, I just… I was just so in love with him that literally nothing else mattered. It was just- It was just_ him _and_ being with him _– it was everything I wanted, and everything I craved, and…_

_“I was selfish. I was so selfish that I just took whatever I could get, I took whatever he could give me. It just- Happened. And it just kept happening, and I was too selfish to walk away. I was too selfish to say ‘no’.”_

_Zayn downs one glass in seconds and then pours himself another. “How’d it start?”_

_The blond sighs, shakes his head. “Zayn-“_

_“How, Niall?” Zayn demands. “The least you can do is tell me how. You owe me that much.”_

_Niall exhales a long, deep, shaky breath. “I tried, Zee,” he murmurs. “I tried so hard_ not _to love him. I tried so fucking hard to force my feelings to go away – but it didn’t work. Nothing I tried to do worked, so instead I just- I forced myself to just live with it. I thought maybe someday I would meet someone that I could love just as much as Harry, if not more, and that it was only a matter of time. That maybe then I wouldn’t have to be in love with him anymore._

_“And then Harry and I went to a party last summer, and he got really drunk and started asking me why I’d never been with anyone – and I couldn’t exactly tell him that it was because of him, could I? He started asking me who I liked and then he started to throw names about and I- I kissed him. I kissed him, and then I ran away and I avoided him for a few days._

_“I think I was a bit angry, if I’m honest. I think I was angry that he had never seen it, that he hadn’t ever paid enough attention to figure it out for himself. And then- Then Harry came around one night and… And he said that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it – and then it just…happened. And then it kept happening. I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t want to.”_

_“Neither did Harry,” Zayn mutters._

_“I’m not proud of it. Neither of us-“_

_“Do you regret it?_

_Niall hesitates – and he’s pretty sure that’s what answers Zayn’s question more than any amount of spoken words could, if the way Zayn looks away is anything to go by. He sighs as he runs a hand through his hair. “It’s not that I don’t, Zayn, I just- I regret how it happened. I regret going behind your back, and I regret hurting you, but… But I can’t say that I regret_ it _because that means regretting being with him and I- I can’t do that. I can’t regret that part of it._

_“I mean, it’s as you said before,” he whispers. “He’s the one thing I’ve_ always _wanted. And I know that I should – I_ know _I should regret everything about it, but I just- I can’t, Zee. I don’t know how to regret it any more than I know how to stop loving him.”_

_Zayn is quiet for a long time. He looks like a wreck. He looks so utterly heartbroken, and yet overwhelmingly numb. He looks about as awful as Niall feels. He finishes off a third – or maybe fourth – glass of the Jameson, sets his empty glass on the counter and then pushes himself away from it. “I hate you right now, Niall. I’ve never hated anyone, but I_ hate _you.”_

_“I know,” Niall whispers._

_“I can’t even- I can’t even look at you.”_

_Niall knows that too._

_Zayn sniffs back tears, runs a hand through his hair and pulls his car keys out of his trousers. “I gotta go,” he mutters. And then he’s off in the direction of the front hall._

_Niall blinks, taken aback for just a moment, before he follows swiftly. “What? Zayn, no- You’ve been drinkin-“_

_“I was drinking before too.”_

_Niall follows, on Zayn’s heels, down the hallway and then out through the garage door. “Zayn, don’t,” he pleads._

_Zayn ignores him in favour of climbing in behind the wheel._

_“Zayn, please-“_

_“Shut up, Niall,” the dark-haired boy mutters as he shoves the key into the ignition._

_Niall winces as the engine roars to life. “Zee, c’mon, you’re drunk,” he says. He reaches through the window, tries to grab Zayn’s keychain to pull them out – only Zayn bats his hand away before his fingers can close around it. “Zayn, get out of the car. Get out of the car, Zayn.”_

_Zayn continues to ignore him as the car begins to roll backwards._

_Niall follows, hands on the door as he trips over his own feet. “Zayn, please get out of the car._

_“Get-_

_“You’re drunk, Zayn, please._

_“Please don’t do this._

_“You’re gonna- You could get hurt, Zayn,_ please _._

_“Zayn! C’mon, mate, I-_

_“ZAYN!”_

X

He wakes up in a cold sweat, in a bed that’s much softer and a room that’s much brighter than the cell he’d been in only minutes – hours, days? – ago. His mouth feels like sandpaper, his heart is racing, and lying down feels like it’s making it too hard to breathe, so he pushes himself up to get out of the bed- Or, at least, he tries.

He wants to, but there’s a handcuff binding him to the rail of the hospital bed, and an IV plugged into his hand. He wants to leave, but he can’t.

Instead, he calls out for someone. For anyone, really. A doctor, a nurse – even a passerby would work.

A nurse rushes in a few moments later. She rushes to his side, tries to make him lie down again, tries to soothe him into calming down – but he can’t.

“I need- I need to talk to someone,” he says urgently. “I need you to call someone.”

Her brows furrow in confusion. “Who, darling?” she asks, pushing the hair falling over his eyes out of his face.

“Detective Winston.”


	14. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She watches them from time to time. She sees them in the hallways, on the school grounds, in the café a few blocks away from her house, at the diner in town – and she can’t help it. They’re interesting, sort of hypnotizing, and incredibly bizarre.
> 
> It’s like- Well, it’s like she knows that Zayn is Harry’s boyfriend and she can see it, sees it every day at school – and yet there’s something about Niall, about Harry and Niall, that’s just sort of…bizarre.
> 
> She can’t quite put her finger on why, though.

It’s while she’s bending down to pick up the book she’d just dropped while gathering her things after class that she meets him.

His hand covers the book before hers does, and when it does her gaze snaps up to meet his. His eyes are green, like an emerald, and his lips are stretched into what might be the brightest smile she’s ever seen.

“Sorry,” he says, laughing softly. “That was a reflex. I don’t know why.”

“It’s okay,” she replies softly, smiling back as he hands her the book. She looks away, places the book in her bag, and then looks back at him. “Thank you.”

He nods. “’m Harry,” he says, holding his hand out for a shake – which she gives him. “You’re the new girl, yeah? Nashville?”

“Actually, I’m Taylor.”

There’s a pause, and her stomach flips because what a stupid, lame joke – but then he laughs, and his whole face lights up with it. He’s kind of beautiful.

She smiles, relieved. “For a second, there, I thought I was gonna have to run away in shame.”

“No need to be ashamed,” he tells her. “Lame jokes are my favourite jokes. In fact, my friends would be the first to tell you that _all_ my jokes are lame.”

“I think we’ll get along, then, because my friends would say the same thing about me.”

Harry grins as he swings his book bag, as well as his camera bag, over his shoulder. “When did you move here?”

“Like- A month ago,” she replies, falling into step beside him as they both make their way out of the classroom. “My dad got a job here, so- You know.”

“Not personally. I was born here – but my best mate, Niall, is from Ireland. He moved here when we were kids. It kinda feels like he’s always been here though, if I’m honest.”

“Yeah? Does he have any tips on how to make friends?”

Harry smirks. “Loads, probably. I’ll introduce you sometime, maybe, and you can ask him.”

Taylor smiles. “Thanks. Hey, um,” she pauses, bites gently, nervously, at the inside of her bottom lip. “Do you mind if I take a picture of you?”

Harry blinks, cocks his head in confusion.

“It’s just- I’m not trying to be weird, or anything, I just have this thing where I like to take pictures of people I meet. It’s…a little weird, now that I say it out loud. You can say no-“

“No, no- I mean, it’s a little strange,” he laughs, “but it’s kind of cool. So, yeah. Shoot away.”

“Cool,” she says, smiling gently as she reaches for her book bag instead of her camera bag. She pulls out an old-looking, large camera from her bag and then holds it up to her face to peek through the viewfinder.

Harry looks surprised as he stares at her, his back against the lockers in the otherwise deserted hallway. “Is that a Keystone camera?” he asks incredulously.

Taylor giggles. “It is,” she says proudly. “Smile.”

He does as he’s told and waits for her click of the camera before he allows himself to move. “That’s sick.”

The camera spits out something like an instant picture just seconds later.

X

“Taylor!”

She recognizes the voice before she sees him. He’s standing with four other boys; a blond-haired one, two brunettes, and a raven-haired one. She waves at him and makes to keep walking until he waves her over. The only reason she goes is because he did say that he would introduce her to his friends.

“Hey,” she says, smiling brightly as she approaches them. “What’s up?”

Harry shrugs. “Thought this was as good a time as any to introduce you to the lads, if that’s okay.”

“Absolutely.”

“So that’s Liam and Louis,” he starts, pointing towards the two brunettes, the shortest of whom, Louis, keeps messing with the other. “That’s Zayn, my boyfriend,” he says, then, and she’s a bit taken aback by how flawless the dark-haired boy looks up close. “And this is Niall, the one I told you about.”

“Oi, hang on,” Niall says, glancing from Taylor towards Harry. “Have you been talking about me behind me back, Styles?”

“Only good things,” Harry teases with a smirk. “She’s from Nashville, and I told her that you’re originally from Ireland so you know what it’s like to start all over and make new friends.”

“Fair enough,” Niall says. “Although I wound up with the four of you, so I don’t know what good that’s going to do her.” He looks at Taylor, then, and it’s like his eyes are shining with the laughter he tries to hold back. “I’d avoid them at all costs if I was you. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

“Well that’s offensive,” Louis quips. “I thought you were supposed to be the nice one.”

Niall smirks. “I am. I’m saving her the trouble of having to be friends with all of you, aren’t I?”

Harry rolls his eyes, albeit fondly, and Taylor can’t help but laugh. Especially when Louis pounces on him, wraps all of his limbs around Niall until the blond is dragged to the ground. It takes all of five seconds, then, for Liam and Zayn to join in their rough housing, which leaves Harry to stand in front of her alone.

“The sad part is, Niall is probably right,” Harry laughs.

X

She doesn’t end up being friends with them. In fact, she barely ends up being friends with Harry.

They’re class friends; friends because of their mutual love of photography. They sit in the back of the classroom together, whisper and pass notes behind the professor’s back, pair up on projects together, and give each other feedback. They exchange numbers, and use those numbers to exchange lame jokes and funny pictures and random moments. They’re friendly, but they’re not really _friends_.

They don’t hang out outside of school, or even outside of the classroom.

And that, Taylor thinks, is mostly due to his actual friends – specifically, his boyfriend and his best friend. Zayn and Niall. And that ends up being okay, in a way, because she ends up making her own friends whom take up most of her time anyway. Abigail specifically.

She watches them from time to time. She sees them in the hallways, on the school grounds, in the café a few blocks away from her house, at the diner in town – and she can’t help it. They’re interesting, sort of hypnotizing, and incredibly bizarre.

It’s like- Well, it’s like she knows that Zayn is Harry’s boyfriend and she can see it, sees it every day at school – and yet there’s something about Niall, about Harry and Niall, that’s just sort of…bizarre.

She can’t quite put her finger on why, though.

X

“Can I ask you something?” Taylor asks softly.

Harry hums absentmindedly. He’s a bit distracted by his camera, trying to get a perfect shot of her sitting under the tree he’d picked out for his project.

“Is Niall single?”

Only then does Harry pull the camera away from his face to look at her, brows furrowed in confusion. “Niall?”

She nods, a smile tugging at her lips. “Yeah. Y’know- Blond hair, blue eyes, Irish accent. I can’t be absolutely certain, but I’m pretty sure you know him.”

Harry doesn’t laugh the way he’s supposed to. Instead, his eyebrows somehow come closer together – only this time he’s a little bit less confused, and a little bit more put off, she thinks. “I mean, yeah, he’s single, I guess. But, like, he isn’t really interested in anyone.”

She cocks her head curiously. “Isn’t really, or isn’t at all?”

“Um- Isn’t at all,” he responds a little bit too quickly. “Why do you ask?”

Taylor shrugs. “Just curious.”

“Are _you_ interested in _him_?”

“I mean- He’s cute,” she says casually. “But, I dunno. I don’t know that he’s my type anyway.”

Harry nods, but otherwise keeps any other thoughts of his to himself. If Taylor didn’t know any better, she’d think he was jealous. (Of what, or who, she’s not quite sure.)

X

The first time she sees it, she thinks she’s seeing things.

The second time she sees it, she decides that it’s probably just Niall being…Niall, or something.

The third time she sees it, however – from across the lunchroom, through a throng of student bodies, it convinces her of the suspicions she’d otherwise refused to acknowledge.

It’s written all over Niall’s face, etched into the blue-green hues of Niall’s irises, and visible in every tense muscle in Niall’s body – from his jaw, to his shoulders, to his feet, after all. It’s fond gazes, and longing stares, and jealous glares.

It’s Niall, and it’s Harry, and it’s Niall being in love with Harry – which is a far cry from _‘isn’t at all interested in anyone’_ – and being jealous, incredibly so sometimes, of Zayn.

It’s subtle. Secretive. In a way that Taylor thinks that nobody else has noticed because nobody else is as observant as she is. Nobody else sees the way Niall looks at Harry, fixated on him, when he thinks that nobody is watching. Nobody else sees the way Niall smiles when Harry laughs, or the way he laughs with his entire body when Harry tells a lame joke that not even Zayn, really, finds funny. Nobody else sees the way his gaze clouds over when Zayn gets too close to Harry, or the way his fists clench when Zayn kisses Harry, or the way that he has to avert his eyes when Zayn holds Harry’s hand.

Nobody else notices because nobody else cares. (Which is a good thing, Taylor decides. Because she can work with that.)

X

She hides her face behind a red solo cup and watches him from across the room.

He’s usually happier. His smile usually shines brighter. He’s usually full of laughter and jokes, flitting around the room like the social sort of butterfly that he is. Tonight, however, he’s rather somber. His smile is sort of dull. His laughter sounds fake, and his jokes aren’t very funny (when he decides to make them), and he mostly just sticks to himself in the corner of the living room.

She approaches him slowly, a shy, timid smile stretched across her red painted lips. “You look like you could use a pick-me-up,” she says, before taking a sip from her cup. It’s water this time around.

Niall lifts his own cup, and cocks his head to the side as if to say that that’s what his drink is for.

She raises a challenging eyebrow. “A distraction, then.”

He stares at her over the rim of his cup; looks like he’s in deep thought, like he’s weighing the pros and cons for the prospect of being distracted in whatever way possible.

She knows why he’s like this. Or, at least, she thinks she knows – if the way Niall has been avoiding Harry like the plague all night, not to mention all week at school, is anything to go by. They’ve had a falling out, she’s sure of it. And she’s curious as to why, if she’s being honest. “I’ve been told that I’m a really good listener, if that helps,” she says softly.

He shakes his head. “Can’t really talk about it.”

“Well,” she murmurs, stepping closer – because this is her chance. She leans in as close as she can get without getting _too_ close, takes the collar of Niall’s flannel between her fingers to play with, and tilts her head as she looks at him. “I’ve also been told that I’m very good company.”

“Yeah? By who?”

She shrugs. “Wouldn’t you rather find out for _yourself_? It’s more fun that way.”

He pauses for a fraction of a minute to look around the room.

Taylor knows that Harry isn’t anywhere to be seen, having seen him leave with Zayn a few minutes ago. She also knows that it’s for that reason alone that Niall gulps down the remainder of his drink before taking her hand.

X

“They always warn you, don’t they? Not to fall in love with the pretty ones…”

Taylor tilts her head as she looks at him. He’s lying on his back, staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes. His cheeks are flushed and his ears are red – whether from the gallon of alcohol he’d consumed throughout the night, or the fact that he’d just had an orgasm, she’s not sure. Regardless, though, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s drunk, and he’s obviously still upset, and now he’s talking about it. Maybe it’s just the alcohol talking – in fact, she’s pretty sure it _is_ just the alcohol that has his tongue so loose, but it doesn’t matter. He’s talking, and who is she not to listen?

She’s a good listener, after all. (She’s also been waiting for this all night.)

“Do they now?” she asks softly. She runs a hand through her hair as she rolls onto her side.

He sighs deeply. “Every rose has it’s thorn. And then a guy like Harry fucking Styles comes along, and you think… ‘Nothing that beautiful and sweet can hurt me.’ You think it’s impossible. You think he loves you too, so of course he’d never hurt you.”

Taylor hums as she begins to draw patterns into his stomach. She pretends she knows what he’s talking about. (She kind of does know though too.)

“And then he does,” Niall continues, his voice but a murmur in the otherwise quiet darkness, “because it’s inevitable. It’s just- You think you know what you’re doing. You think you know what you’re getting yourself into. You think you can handle it, because roses prick everyone, but there’s always one that hurts more – one that hurts the most. One you can’t handle no matter how hard you try.

“And it’s not his fault. Roses don’t mean to hurt you. He just- Does. And you should’ve learned your lesson anyway, or maybe you did but it isn’t enough to keep you away. So, really, it’s your own fault if the rose hurts you, because you’re the one that touched it.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, pressing a kiss against his jaw. She feels her heart up in her throat as she pulls away. “I know exactly what you mean.”

And that’s it. That’s more than _it_ , though, too. It’s more than just a confirmation of the validity of her theory that Niall Horan is head over heels in love with his best friend. It’s more than that. It’s confirmation that Niall and Harry have been seeing each other behind Zayn’s back – or, that they had been, at least.

And suddenly everything makes sense. It explains the way Niall would look at Harry like it was more than just a stupid crush. It explains why Harry would sometimes look apologetic whenever Zayn was around. It explains why she’s rarely seen them around each other over the last few weeks, and why things seemed so tense whenever they had to be. It definitely explains Niall’s mood tonight – right down to him taking her home when he’d never previously shown any type of interest in her whatsoever.

It also explains why he hadn’t even looked at her once they got up to his bedroom. It explains why he didn’t even bother to turn the light on before backing her against the door when he closed it. And why everything – from the way he kissed her, to the way he touched her and undressed her, to the way he fucked her – felt sort of…robotic and mechanical, like he was just going through the motions.

It wasn’t about desire. It wasn’t about intimacy. It wasn’t even about getting off – at least, not for Niall. It was more like a business transaction. An eye for an eye.

That saying, the one about how the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, floats through her mind, then. (She thinks he’s too far gone – and far too drunk – for that to work for him anyway, by the sound of it.)

“Do ya?” Niall asks. This time, when he speaks, he’s looking at her. His eyebrows are raised, like he’s curious.

She nods, then tucks her face against Niall’s chest. “There’s this guy that I like and he’s really sweet, and I know that we’d be perfect together but- He’s with somebody else. And it’s not his fault, because he doesn’t know, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting, you know? That doesn’t stop it from hurting every time I see them together.”

“Yeah,” Niall breathes. He tears his gaze away, then, and looks back up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I know.”

Taylor makes a point of sighing, then, as she pushes herself up, clutching the sheet to her chest. “I should get home before my dad goes out looking for me.”

“Wouldn’t want that.”

She giggles softly, mostly to herself, as she starts to get dressed. She makes a mental note of the fact that Niall doesn’t even look at her. “Thanks,” she says softly, as she pushes her feet into her white converse shoes. “For- Well, for tonight.”

“Back at ya,” he murmurs back. “Want me to walk you down?”

She shakes her head. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

He hums his agreement; looks at her with drunk, tired eyes. “Don’t tell anyone what I told you, yeah?”

She smiles. “Your secret is safe with me, Niall.”

X

She sees him by accident, she swears. She hasn’t even been looking for him, not this time anyway.

She hadn’t been able to sleep, so instead of trying and failing – and trying and failing – she’d gotten herself up, and gotten herself dressed to go for a run. She was just, well, running when she’d seen him. And he was just walking.

He looked tired. Looked frustrated. He was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, with a beanie over his head; a stark contrast from his usual attire.

She’d only followed him on a whim, mostly because it was almost one o’clock in the morning and her curiosity had gotten the best of her, with her camera clutched in her hands more out of comfort than anything. She follows him slowly, stealthily so that he doesn’t hear her. She figures out where they’re going when they’re about halfway there.

The Viaduct. She knows this because it’s the only thing further than the fields they’re walking through to get there. The question, however, is: Why? Why the Viaduct? Why in the middle of the night? Why?

Her answer comes in the form a blond-haired boy, sitting with his back against the wall of one of the arches. The only reason she can tell that it’s him, is because there’s a lantern on the ground beside him and it’s bright enough to light up his face.

She watches Harry approach slowly. Watches Niall watch him too, something like understanding painted across his face.

_“I didn’t follow you here, I promise,”_ she hears Harry whisper, once he’s sitting down.

She sees Niall respond, then, more than hears him. Their voices are quiet, hushed despite thinking that they’re alone. She can barely hear them, so she tiptoes closer. Her footsteps are quiet, and she gets close as she can without risking being seen by either of them.

_“If you asked me to do it – if you asked me to move in with you, or to go away with you, or whatever-“_ she hears Harry stutter, but a moment later as she lifts her camera to peer through the viewfinder, _“I’d do it, Niall. In a heartbeat."_

Her own heart aches at his words, and it’s like her stomach twists into knots. They both lean in, then, and she momentarily forgets how to breathe. She watches, with what feels like her heart in her throat, as Harry wraps himself up in Niall – and as Niall wraps himself up in Harry in return, and then-

_“I don’t know how to stop loving you.”_

She watches Harry kiss him. She hears Harry moan. She hates how Harry pulls him about as close as two human beings can be.

She’s never hated Niall Horan more than she does right now.

And so she takes a picture.

X

She doesn’t know the man’s name, nor does she care. In fact, it’s probably best that she doesn’t actually know who he is anyway.

He looks relatively put together, for a drug dealer, when she sees him. He’s waiting for her in the park, dressed in khakis paired with a button down shirt and a sweater vest; he almost looks like a businessman, sort of looks like he could be a professor.

“Swift?” he greets her as she approaches him.

She nods. “Do you have it?”

“They aren’t like other drugs,” he explains as he pulls a small bag out of one pocket of his trousers. Inside the bag are two incredibly small, white pills. “They don’t make a person pass out, but they will make a person blackout.”

She takes the bag from him, whilst slipping him a handful of the money she owes him for it, and immediately shoves into the smallest pocket in her book bag. “So- They won’t remember anything?”

“Can’t say they won’t remember _anything_ , but they definitely won’t remember very much at all,” he tells her. “Most people lose at least two or three hours between the time the pill is ingested and when they fall asleep.”

“How long will it take to dissolve in liquid?” she asks.

“Seconds.”

“And it doesn’t have a taste?”

He shakes his head. “It’s tasteless and odorless.”

“Alright, thank you.”

He looks her up and down once, and shoves his hands into his pockets. “What’s a girl like you want with pills like this anyway?”

Taylor shrugs, smiles softly. “Every girl has a bit of a wild side, don’t they?”

X

She opens the bottle slowly so that it doesn’t ruin her manicure. (The manicure was a graduation present from her father. The bottle of Jameson was a gift from her uncle.)

With the cap off, she wraps a hand around the neck of the bottle and lifts the opening to her lips. She takes a long, slow gulp, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand in a way that smears her red lipstick across her pale skin, and then sets the bottle back onto the counter. (This way, when she tells Niall that she tried it but didn’t like it, she’d only be half lying.)

She reaches into her knapsack, then, and pulls the pills out of the smallest pocket. She grabs one pill with careful fingers, and then drops it into opening of the bottle. The pill creates the tiniest, most fascinating of bubbles in the liquid as it dissolves into absolutely nothing within a matter of seconds.

A smile tugs at her lips as she replaces the cap.

X

She rolls the pill between slender fingers in one hand, and holds the polaroid in the other, as she makes her way through the crowd towards the back door. Zayn just walked out, a red solo cup in hand, to have a cigarette which means that now is her chance; it’s probably her only chance, given how many people are here.

“Zayn, hey,” she says softly, whilst stepping through the doorway onto the back patio.

Zayn exhales, a cloud of smoke billowing around him. “Hey, Taylor,” he greets back, setting his cup on the patio table next to him.

“I, um- I have something to show you,” she murmurs. She sounds hesitant, even to her own ears.

His brow furrows in confusion as she comes up beside him. “Um, alright…” He sounds hesitant too.

“You might want to sit down-“

“I’ll stand.” This time his voice sounds hard and impatient. Perhaps even just slightly nervous as well.

She raises her hand with the photograph in it, then, and holds it out to him. She doesn’t say anything, but that’s probably because she doesn’t have to; she can tell by the way his gaze hardens before he grabs the picture from her that he knows what it is, what it means.

It’s while he’s staring at it, like he’s trying to convince himself that he isn’t seeing what he’s actually seeing, that she slips the pill over the rim of his cup.

“Where did you get this?” Zayn demands, then.

“I- I took it.”

“When?”

She shrugs. “A week or two ago, I think,” she whispers. “I didn’t know what to do with it, but- I figured you should know.”

“Fuck,” he hisses, though he doesn’t direct it at her. He looks angry, looks hurt and betrayed, looks like he could scream or cry or break something at any second. Instead, like she’d predicted, he reaches for his cup and gulps back what’s left of it.

And then he leaves. (And she follows.)

X

She revels in how stupid boys can be as she makes her way up the driveway. It’s late, and it’s dark, and they might live in a small town where everybody knows everyone, even if they don’t _know_ each other – but leaving one’s garage door open is still, well, stupid. Between bratty children who like to steal past curfew and nosy neighbours, one can never be too careful. Or smart; one can never be too smart.

Niall Horan, as drunk as he might be, is not very smart. Tonight it just so happens to work for her. It’s almost too easy.

Zayn’s car is parked, rather haphazardly, inside the garage next to Niall’s. The cars are similar in colour and make, but she recognizes the license plate on Zayn’s, having seen it in the driveway at the party.

She smirks when she hears them yelling at each other. Her heart skips a beat when she hears Niall beg for Zayn to stop- _“Zayn, please, just- PLEASE just let me explain!”_

She doesn’t have a lot of time. There’s no way that Zayn is going to be able to hang around much longer, even if Niall does sound rather convincing. So she searches quickly until she finds what she’s looking for; she might not be a _mechanic’s_ daughter, but her father knows enough about cars to get by and he made a habit out of teaching her the basics. That’s how she knows that a pipe cutter will work just fine.

She grabs the first one she finds. Smirks when she sees the small _N.H._ engraved into the handle because the irony is impeccable. And then she puts herself to work.

 

It was a bit of a tough pill to swallow, no pun intended, at first – the realization that she would have to take a life. (Two, if the fact that someone else will be spending life in prison counts as taking a life.) But coming to terms with it wasn’t nearly as hard as she thought it would be; it definitely wasn’t as hard as she thought it was supposed to be. It’s something she has to do, after all. Zayn doesn’t deserve Harry, doesn’t always treat him right, and Niall, well- It’s just too bad that Niall had to go and get himself involved, honestly.

She and Harry are soulmates. They’re meant to be together. And they can’t be together if either Zayn or Niall are in the picture. If they’re in the picture, then they’re in the way. They’re in _her_ way. She has to eliminate them. She _has_ to. It’s the only way.

 

She does it quickly. Only just manages to slip out of the garage and around the side of the house when Zayn comes barging through the door, Niall on his heels. She presses herself against the brick wall, the pipe cutter still clutched between her fingers – she’ll dispose of it later, as a car door opens and then closes. It sounds like there’s a short struggle before Niall starts pleading with Zayn to get out of the car. He sounds scared, seems panicked. (Taylor feels sort of excited.)

_“Zayn, get out of the car. Get out of the car, Zayn._

_“Zayn, please get out of the car._

_“You’re gonna- You could get hurt, Zayn,_ please _._

_“ZAYN!”_


	15. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You killed him,” Harry says. “You killed him, and then you tried to set Niall up for it.”
> 
> “I didn’t kill him though,” Taylor tells him calmly. “Not technically-“
> 
> “Not technically?” Harry echoes incredulously. “You cut his brakes, Taylor! You knew what would happen – what could happen.
> 
> “You took that picture, and then you showed it to Zayn because you knew that he would confront Niall, and then you cut his brakes so that he’d get into an accident – and you did it with Niall’s pipe cutter so that the police would find it, eventually, and Niall would go down for it.”
> 
> Taylor sighs, then. She licks her lips, places both photos on the end of the bed and then runs a hand through her hair. “I didn’t know that the pipe cutter belonged specifically to Niall until I grabbed it," she admits. "That was like a…happy coincidence.”

The cup in his hand is hot, despite the cardboard sleeve the barista put on it. It’s been a long day – a long week, at that – and a strong, black coffee seems to be the only thing keeping him alert these days.

It’s weeks like this, cases like these, where everything is messy and everyone is hurt, that make him question why he ever thought that policing was the right job for him. Sometimes he thinks he doesn’t have it him, that he won’t last as a detective much longer; not only is it incredibly time-consuming, which takes time away from his family, but it’s stressful and it’s aggravating and it’s emotional. They’ve got a dead kid, and another kid about to be charged with his murder – although he feels in his gut that that kid is innocent, all over another kid that both kids were in love with, and-

It’s a fucking mess, is what it is, and Corden is just about at his wit’s end, if he’s being honest.

He’s just about to climb in behind the wheel of his car when he hears someone shout behind him- “Detective!”

Coming out of the very same coffee shop is a young woman, Taylor Swift, if he’s not mistaken; in other words, Harry Styles’ fiancé.

“Detective,” she says, greeting him with a smile as stops in front of him. “I, um, wanted to ask if you can tell me anything about the investigation.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t talk about the details of the case with the public unless it’s been released in a statement,” James replies, although he’s sure that she already knows that.

Taylor’s smile fades, slightly, but only momentarily. “Right, of course,” she nods. “I’m sorry, it’s just- Harry’s really worried about Niall, you know? And I am too. He was such a great kid in school, always had good grades, was never in trouble… It’s such a shame that someone like that could have done something like – well, like what he did. I almost don’t believe it.”

“With all due respect, Ms. Swift, he’s not been proven guilty.”

She shrugs. “Well, no, but- Niall was in love with Harry, which gives him the motive, right? And Niall had recently been hurt by Harry’s relationship with Zayn, so, I mean, he certainly had reason to be angry. Perhaps he wanted revenge because Harry wouldn’t leave Zayn.”

James remains silent, thoughtful. What, exactly, does she mean by that?

“Anyway, I have to get going, but it was lovely to see you, James,” she says, then, as she touches his arm. “Take care!”

Just as quickly as she had appeared, Taylor takes off.

James, meanwhile, remains still as wonders how Taylor would have known about Horan’s potential heartache. News of Horan’s and Styles’ affair has spread quickly, as news – bad news, especially – often does is small towns like this, sure, but there hadn’t been any other details released to the press. In other words: the general public knows nothing of Horan being _in love_ with Styles.

Although it is possible, he supposes, that she’d spoken with Styles about it, which means that it’s possible that he had told her everything – which would explain how she would know that Horan had been hurt. Anything is possible at this point, after all.

And yet, even as he does finally manage to climb in behind the wheel of his car and make his way back to the station, he’s unable to shake the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach over just how much Taylor Swift knows and, more perhaps more importantly, _how_.

X

Harry’s hands are shaking and his heart is pounding as he struggles to unlock the front door before he loses his mind. He pushes the door open, when he does, and then slams it closed. He feels sick to his stomach, and his knees feel a bit weak, but he moves as quickly as his feet will carry him – through the foyer, up the stairs, and into the bedroom.

He goes straight for the back of Taylor’s side of the closet. It’s where she keeps her old family photo albums, her projects from school, and all of her old photography equipment.

It’s where he finds a box, and somehow he knows that it’s exactly what he’s looking for. He drops to his knees on the floor, takes a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm his nerves, and then pulls back the lid.

Inside is her old Keystone camera and a few unopened packages of film. He pulls them out of the box to set them on the floor, and underneath are a few smaller boxes. His fingers shake as he pulls one of them out. His stomach churns as he pushes back the lid. (He knows what he’s going to find. He can’t tell if he feels sick because of that, or in spite of that.)

There are photographs. Polaroids.

He picks up one picture, gaze trained on the smudge in the upper right hand corner. Then he pulls the picture that he’d taken from Zayn’s belongings out of the back pocket of his jeans, and- The smudges are exactly the same. He’d known it the moment he saw the photograph in Zayn’s room – but knowing it and seeing it are completely different things, and he-

His eyes are wet, burning with tears as he pushes himself to his feet. He clutches both pictures in one hand, and pushes his other through his hair. He doesn’t know what to do with himself; doesn’t know if he should go and take the pictures to the police, or if he should stay and confront her.

The only thing he _wants_ to do is scream. He wants to let it all out, wants to scream until his throat hurts just as much as every fiber of his being.

She killed him. She killed Zayn. She planned it, and she killed him, and she tried to set Niall up for it – and now she’s trying again. She killed his boyfriend, and tried to make his lover take the fall for it. And- Harry has been with her. He’s made love to her. He’s asked her to live her life with him, prepared himself to live his life with her. And this whole time she…

She’s been lying to him. She’s been manipulating him.

She’s been a monster.

He’s nauseous, and the room spins as he staggers towards the bed; the thought of it having been _their_ bed makes him want to rip it to shreds. He feels dirty, feels like _he’s_ the one with Zayn’s blood on his hands.

How could he not have seen it? How could he not have known? How could he have gone nearly three years with this woman and not _known_?

He hates it. He hates _her_.

He wants to kill her. Thinks that she deserves it for all the pain and suffering she’s caused; for taking the life of an innocent kid, for taking a child from his parents and a brother from his sisters, for taking a friend away from boys he considered his brothers, for- For ruining people’s lives. For trying – and ultimately succeeding, given the life Niall has lived for the last four years – to ruin the rest of _Niall’s_ life.

He wants to ruin _her_.

 

 

The front door opens as he’s trying to decide what to do with himself, and now suddenly he doesn’t have a choice. He has to confront her. She owes him answers, anyway. She _owes_ him an explanation.

The sound of her voice drifting through the house, calling his name, makes him want to throw up. He closes his eyes to it, bites the inside of his cheek and pinches the bridge of his nose as he wills himself not to. She calls out to him a second time, and he has to clear his throat in order to make his voice sound at least somewhat normal as he yells back that he’s upstairs.

Her heels click against the hardwood floor in the hallway, and then they stop. And Harry starts to count the number of stairs in his head as he waits.

X

James is in the middle of sifting through old police report files in one of the large filing cabinets at the back of the station when his phone rings. At the same time, he finds one that he might be looking for so he pulls the file out with one hand and answers the call with the other. “Corden,” he answers.

“Are you at the station?” Winston asks. There’s a sense of urgency to his voice that never fails to make James’ blood run a little bit cold.

“Yeah, I’m-“

“I need you to look into police reports filed either on the night of the accident or the next day.”

“Already on it,” James tells him as he flips the folder open on top of the cabinet. He puts his phone on speaker, and then sets that on top of the cabinet as well. “I ran into Taylor Swift today. Styles’ fiancé. She made a couple of strange comments and- I’ve got a hunch.”

“James. She’s the only person that knew about the affair.”

“How do you know that?”

“Horan’s memories came back,” Winston said. “He remembers everything. More specifically, he remembers shagging Taylor a few weeks before the accident and, more or less, telling her about it.”

James lifts an eyebrow, though his gaze remains trained on the sheets of paper within the file as he flips through it. “ _More or less?_ ”

“He says he didn’t come right out and say it, but it was obvious what he was saying. He also said that she came by his father’s house that night and gave him a bottle of Jameson.”

“You think she drugged him?” James asks.

Winston hums through the line. “It would explain why he hadn’t been able to remember anything.”

“Well, based on my conversation with her earlier, I think she did know about the affair. I also think she knows more than she lets on, which-“ He cuts himself off when he sees it: a report. “I found it,” he sputters, scanning it over quickly with his gaze. “There was a report of a blond girl wondering the streets filed that night from a concerned citizen. Nothing ever came from it. It had to have been her.”

“It was her,” Winston says, sounding certain.

James is already collecting his things off of his desk when Winston tells him to go to the Styles residence. “Are you going to meet me there, or should I call for backup?”

“Call for back up. I’ll stay at the hospital with the kid.”

James blinks, taken aback. “Hospital?”

X

++

_He’s not watching where he’s going when he whirls around to leave, coffee in hand, and collides with someone behind him. There’s a muttered “oops” and then a “sorry” tumbles out of Harry’s mouth as he looks up to focus his gaze on the person’s face – and that’s when he recognizes Taylor._

_He hasn’t seen her in months, hasn’t even spoken to her since she whispered her condolences to him at Zayn’s memorial. Truth be told, he hasn’t even thought about her at all since before graduation, even – having been too wrapped up in Niall, and in Zayn, and in Zayn’s accident, and in Niall refusing to speak to him after, and then ultimately in Zayn’s death. To be fair, though, he hasn’t really thought about much of anything but those things either._

_“Harry,” Taylor says, smiling softly as she tucks a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “How are you?”_

_Harry smiles back, although even to him it feels forced. “I’m good,” he replies. It’s rather mechanical, that response._ I’m good. _The truth is, he isn’t good. It’s just, well, easier to say that he is than it is to explain why he isn’t. (One wouldn’t think he’d need an explanation, in a town as small as this where everyone knows why – and yet.) “How are you?”_

_“I’m great,” she beams. “You know, it feels like forever since I’ve seen you. We should go for coffee sometime.” She pauses, looks around the café, and then giggles. “I say as we stand in the middle of a coffee shop.”_

_“Go figure,” Harry smirks._

_“I just think it would be nice to catch up.”_

_Harry nods. “Definitely, yeah.”_

_The barista behind the counter calls out Taylor’s name, and she smiles as she steps forward to take her drink – an iced latte._

_“I have to go meet a friend shortly, but you still have my number, right?” she asks before taking a sip._

_“I do. I’ll text you.”_

_She smiles one more time, although this time it’s a bit flirtatiously. “I look forward to it.”_

++

“You’ll never believe who I ran into today,” Taylor says as she walks into the bedroom.

Harry’s stomach churns at the sight of her, like he’s going to be sick. His heart beats loudly in his chest, pounds in his temples, and it takes everything in him not to start screaming at her. It takes every ounce of willpower he has to remain where he is, both photos still clutched tight between his fingers.

“I saw Detective Corden,” she continues, seemingly oblivious to how quiet Harry is, as she kicks her shoes off next to her dresser. “He said he couldn’t tell me anything about the case against Niall, but I think-“ She finally pauses when she notices him sitting silently at the end of the bed, staring at her with a dangerously hard gaze. Her brows furrow in confusion as she looks back at him. “Harry, what’s the matter?”

He lifts his hands, holds the photos out for her to take. “You tell me.”

She crosses the room slowly, takes the photos from him cautiously and all the while, her gaze is trained on his. He nods, encourages her to look at them – and only then does she tear her gaze away from him to look down at the two polaroids in her hand.

He watches her face pale. Watches her blink, like she’s taken aback. Watches her hand start to shake. And he feels sick.

“I-I don’t understand,” she whispers. “What-“

Harry scoffs, cuts her off as he pushes himself to his feet rather abruptly. He doesn’t look at her as moves past her, hands balled into fists as his side. He feels sick. He feels angry. He feels like he could hit something – and hit something and hit something. Thinks the pain of scraping his knuckles bare, right down to the bone, would hurt less than the anguish he feels pulsing through him. In fact, he knows It would. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand,” he hisses.

“Harry-“

“And don’t you _dare_ insult my intelligence by pretending you don’t know what this is about,” he mutters.

“Harry, I don’t-“

He whirls around, heart pounding in his chest, gaze burning angrily. He knows what she’s trying to do. He knows what she’s trying to say. She’s pretending that she doesn’t understand what _he’s_ trying to say. And, if he would let her, she’d probably pretend that she doesn’t know the significance of the similarities in both photos. “You _know_ , Taylor. Stop pretending, stop fucking lying to me, just- Stop.”

She takes a deep breath, then, as she looks at him with soft eyes. “Harry,” she whispers softly. She attempts to take a step towards him, but he takes a step back. “Baby, I can explain.”

“You killed him,” Harry says. “ _You_ killed him, and then you tried to set _Niall_ up for it.”

“I didn’t kill him though,” Taylor tells him calmly. “Not technically-“

“ _Not technically?_ ” Harry echoes incredulously. “You cut his brakes, Taylor! You knew what would happen – what _could_ happen.

“You took that picture, and then you showed it to Zayn because you knew that he would confront Niall, and then you cut his brakes so that he’d get into an accident – and you did it with Niall’s pipe cutter so that the police would find it, eventually, and Niall would go down for it.”

Taylor sighs, then. She licks her lips, places both photos on the end of the bed and then runs a hand through her hair. “I didn’t know that the pipe cutter belonged specifically to Niall until I grabbed it," she admits. "That was like a…happy coincidence.”

Harry’s stomach plummets, and a muscle in his jaw tightens from the effort it takes not to scream. He’d known. He’d known – and yet hearing it now, hearing it from her, it’s- Sickening. It’s heartbreaking. He doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want this to go any further, and yet he needs it. He needs to hear it. And he needs to hear it from her.

“Everything about that night was a happy coincidence, actually,” she says, smiling softly. “From Niall taking the bottle of Jameson I laced with a drug that would make him forget – which I knew he would drink because, I mean, he’s Irish and he was upset, to Zayn going straight to Niall’s house after I showed him the picture. He could have gone to confront you, which would have made everything so much harder, but he didn’t. It was…like fate, in a way. It confirmed what I already knew.”

Harry swallows hard around the lump in his throat as she walks around him. He doesn’t take his gaze off of her, even as she just walks around to her side of the bed. “What did you already know?”

“That it was something I had to do.”

“Why?”

She giggles.

She fucking giggles – and the sound of it makes Harry want to strangle her. How can she laugh? How can she think that this is, in any way, amusing?

“So that you and I could be together, silly. We belong together.”

He wants to throw up. “When- When did you realize that?”

“Oh- I’ve always known it,” she says easily. “I just had to figure out a way to get Zayn out of the way. And then I found out about you and Niall, and at first it was really frustrating for me because I had to get them _both_ out of the way – but it worked out in the end, because it was actually easier than just trying to get Zayn out of the way.”

His chest hurts. “How’d you find out about Niall and I?” He doesn’t really want to know – doesn’t really want to have to think about it, but he has to know. He has to know how she, of all people, found out.

Taylor shrugs easily. “I’d already had my own suspicions that he’d been in love with you, or something. And then- He told me. He was drunk- I mean, we both were, but he was more so. I’d had these suspicions for a while that he was in love with you, and there was this one party where it was like he was avoiding you like the plague, which I thought was strange considering the two of you were usually attached at the hip and all, and-

“Anyway, I went home with him and I slept with him, and then he started talking about roses and how they have thorns and how much they hurt – and then he said your name, and I knew. He asked me not to tell anyone what he’d said, afterwards, so I didn’t.

“Until I told Zayn, that is. I knew that I had to tell Zayn, but I didn’t know how – and then one night I was out late and so were you, so I followed you and-“

“That’s the night you took the picture,” Harry mutters. “At the Viaduct.”

She nods, a soft smile tugging at her lips. “It was almost too easy. Telling Zayn, after that, was the easiest part. Actually- It was also surprisingly easy to come to terms with the fact that Zayn had to die.”

Bile rises in Harry’s throat, and he winces as he forces it back down. “And Niall?”

Taylor shrugs again. “I would have preferred if the police had followed through and done their jobs better the first time around. Had they ruled it a homicide the way they were supposed to, they would have found the pipe cutter I dropped behind Niall’s house in their search for evidence. But it worked out quite well anyway what with Niall fleeing the country almost immediately after.”

Harry’s brow furrows together in frustrated confusion. He shouldn’t be doing this. They shouldn’t be _talking_ about it. He should be calling the police – he should have _already_ called the police. But he needs to hear it; for himself. If for nothing but his own sense of understanding, he has to hear it. “Then why now?” he asks, struggling to keep the anger (and the desperation, and the despair) out of his voice. “Why send him the letters? Why- Why set him up for it _now_?”

“I knew it was only a matter of time before he came back,” Taylor explains. She’s in the midst of undressing, now, and Harry has to look away when she begins to undo the buttons on her shirt. “And then he did, and I- I couldn’t take the chance that he might want to stick around. Don’t you see, Harry? He’s in the way. And he’d always be in the way if I didn’t do something about it.”

“He wasn’t going to stay,” Harry tells her. “He came for his mum’s funeral and then he was leaving.”

Taylor tilts her head and frowns. “As long as you’re here, baby, I couldn’t take the chance.”

She’s dressed in nothing but her bra and knickers when she steps towards him. She reaches out for him, murmurs his name, tries to get her arms around his neck to hug him-

But he can’t even look at her, let alone stomach the thought of letting her touch him so he grabs her arms to push her away.

“Harry, baby-“

“Why did you have to kill Zayn?” Harry demands. “I mean, surely there was some other way. Right?”

She sighs. “I needed something permanent. And I needed you to hate Niall. I- We needed something permanent. We needed this, Harry. It was the only way.”

Harry shakes his head. He squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose, dips his head in a vain attempt to make the throbbing in his temples go away. “No,” he mutters. “No, it wasn’t.”

“It was, Harry. Babe-“

“He could have lived,” he says. This time he doesn’t hide the anger or the desperation or the despair. She deserves it; she deserves to know that he’s hurt, she deserves to have to acknowledge what she’s done. “He could have lived, Taylor.”

“Harry, you don’t understand-“

He stops listening, then. Between the beat his heart is making in his ears and a mantra of his own voice saying _‘he could have lived’_ echoing in the back of his mind, he can barely even focus on anything else. It takes every ounce of strength that his body still has to carry himself towards the bed, where he grabs both polaroid pictures. He’s only vaguely aware of her calling his name as he turns around, can only just make out the sound of her voice asking him where he’s going.

His reply, a barely there “I’m taking these to the police”, slips out from between his lips as if on instinct.

A moment later, just as he reaches the door, there’s a click. It’s clear as day – rings loud throughout the bedroom and vibrates against the drums of ears, through the sound of his rapidly beating heart. His stomach drops. His heart stutters. And for a moment he forgets how to breathe. He doesn’t even have to turn around to know what it’s from, but he does anyway and-

He finds himself staring down the barrel of a revolver.

“I can’t let you do that, baby,” she murmurs. “I _won’t_ let you do that.”

++

_Eight months. It’s been eight months since he first started seeing her- Not seeing her, though, so much as just hanging out with her._

_And it’s been just a year since_ it _happened. Fourteen months. Fourteen months since Zayn passed away; since Niall hopped on a plane and never looked back. Fourteen months since they both left him. (Zayn didn’t have a choice. And angry and hurt as Harry has been for Niall deciding to leave too, he reckons that Niall didn’t really have a choice either.)_

_Time has passed. Many things have changed, but many things have stayed the same as well. The main thing that has changed, and probably the hardest to come to terms with, is_ Taylor _._

_They’ve spent a lot of time together over the last eight months. At first it was just because he’d felt like he’d needed it. She’d made him feel less lonely, is the thing. He still had his family, of course, but that was different. He’d still had Liam and Louis, but they were grieving too – and sometimes it was just too_ hard _to see them. But it was just…different with Taylor because she didn’t really know Zayn, so she wasn’t really grieving. She was just- There. Like a breath of fresh air for whenever he felt like he was drowning which was, admittedly, quite often._

_They were friends. They joked together, and laughed together, and had fun together. It was simple. It was easy. It was an escape from the reality that had become his life. He hadn’t thought much of it._

_And now here he is, thinking – wondering if it’s time that has moved on too quickly, or if it’s_ him _. Here is, looking at Taylor and admiring the way the sun shines in her blond hair, the way it bounces off of her pale skin, and he wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her, except-_

_He wonders if it’s too soon. He wonders if he’s ready. He knows that he hasn’t_ moved on _in every sense of the word – knows that he’ll probably never be over_ it _, or Zayn, or Niall. But when is it time to try? When is it time to actively go for it? Is there even a right time? Or is that something people tell themselves to make themselves feel better about whatever timeframe they’ve fallen into?_

_“What?” she asks softly, squinting her eyes as she turns to look at him._

_“Hmm?” he murmurs._

_“You’re staring,” she giggles. “Do I have something on my face?”_

_“No,” he says, smiles softly. “You’re perfect.”_

_Her cheeks blush pink, and Harry’s heart flutters in response._

_Perhaps there really isn’t a right time. Perhaps it’s just time, and time is going to move on. Perhaps it’s just up to the individual to decide whether or not they’re going to move with it._

_And, the thing is, it’s Taylor. She’s never steered him wrong before. So perhaps it_ is _time._

_That’s why he kisses her. With one hand in her hair and the other resting atop her thigh, he kisses her. It’s short and it’s soft, nothing more than a tender touch of lips, and a subtle hint of tongue. It’s not Zayn, and it’s_ nothing _like kissing Niall – but it’s really kind of wonderful anyway._

++

His gaze flickers towards the open drawer in Taylor’s bedside table, which is where he reckons she got the gun from. He hadn’t even known that she owned a gun. But, then, there’s a lot about her that he hadn’t known, isn’t there?

His heart jumps up into his throat, his mouth feels like it’s made of sandpaper, and his palms are sweating. _This is it_ , he thinks. This is how he dies. Before he can tell anyone else the truth. Before he can give Trisha, and the rest of Zayn’s family, whatever piece of mind he can. Before can prove to Niall that he’s innocent.

“I didn’t want to do this,” Taylor murmurs. “Why did you make me do this?”

He thinks about the consequences, then. Surely it would look suspicious, right? Surely somebody would be able to put two-and-two together. Niall would figure it out. Right? “They’ll know it was you, if you kill me,” he finds himself saying.

“I’ll make it look like a suicide,” she says with a rather nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. “Poor Harry Styles, depressed and distraught over the loss of his ex-lover for killing his boyfriend.”

Harry blinks, momentarily taken back. “You’re mental.”

“I did it for us, Harry,” she whispers. Her voice is soft, almost tender. “We’re soulmates, can’t you see? Zayn didn’t treat you right.”

He swallows hard around a lump in his throat as he eyes the gun. Her hands are eerily still. “And Niall?”

“Niall wasn’t good enough for you.”

He shakes his head, eyes wet and burning with tears. “You didn’t have to hurt anyone, Taylor. You didn’t have to do any of this-”

“I didn’t have a chance if I didn’t get them out of the picture first,” she says. “I did it for us. I did it so that you would notice me, and so that we could be together. I just wanted to _finally_ be with you.”

“Taylor-“

“And now you’re mad at me…” she murmurs, and he’s almost surprised by how genuinely upset she sounds. She frowns, and her chin quivers slightly as if she’s about to cry.

The last thing he needs is for her to cry – not because he doesn’t want her to, or even because he cares, but because it gives her more time to stall. It also gives her more time to get emotional and to, possibly, do something both of them will regret.

“I’m not- I’m not mad at you,” he tells her gently. His stomach churns as the words come out of his mouth, and for a moment he hates himself for saying them. But he has to try and keep her on his side. He has to keep her calm. He has to distract her. “I… I get it. And- I’m grateful.”

She cocks her head, and a small smile tugs at her lips. “Really?”

He forces himself to nod; forces his voice not to waver. “Yeah, honey. I mean, if you hadn’t, then I’d have never fallen in love with you. And I’m so grateful that I did. Thank you.”

“I love you.”

“I-I love you so much, love.,” he whispers. He doesn’t even think that he can muster anything stronger than that. It’s not like he means it; not anymore. In fact, he feels quite the opposite now. He just has to keep her calm, is all. He has to figure out a way to disarm her, both physically and mentally. “So just- Can you put the gun down for me?”

There’s a long pause, then. And Harry watches her. He watches her blink, watches the way her eyes darken and the way her eyebrows knit together. He watches emotion after emotion as they play on her face and flicker in her eyes; realization, hurt, anger, betrayal.

“You’re lying,” she scoffs but a moment later.

“What?”

“You’re lying to me!” she shouts. She takes one step closer, keeps the gun pointed at Harry’s face. “You don’t- You don’t love me anymore, and you- You want to turn me in, that’s why you confronted me-“

Harry licks his lips, puts a hand out in the space between them as it to create a barrier – although he knows it’s in vain. “Taylor-“

“How dare you?!” she screams. “I did _everything_ for you, and this is what I get in return?”

“Taylor, please put the gun down,” he tells her, pleads with her.

“Fuck you! I hate you!” She’s crying now, black tears rolling down her cheeks.

A few hours ago, Harry would have felt guilty; he would have felt bad for making her cry. But right now he feels nothing – at least, nothing in regards to her crying. He still feels angry, still feels betrayed, still feels sick to his stomach. And now he feels a bit anxious, like if he doesn’t get out – or at least get a hold of the gun – then this isn’t going to end well at all.

An opportunity arises a few seconds later. Taylor has her head down; she’s muttering to herself – stuff about how she risked everything to be with him and this is how he repays her, and the gun is still pointed at him but she isn’t paying attention, and-

That’s how he manages to make a grab for it.

Taylor shrieks as she struggles to keep it away from him. She pries at his fingers, which are wrapped around the barrel of the gun. “Let go,” she screams.

Harry somehow ends up wrapped around her, both hands still clutching the gun as she twists and thrashes. Her hair whips him in the face, one of her elbows digs into his ribs, and her heel lands hard on top of his toes. He grunts as he tries to keep hold of her, because at least this way he can maintain control of the situation-

There’s searing, blinding pain. It’s concentrated in the center of his face, and for one second, he dwells on the fact that she may have just broken his nose. And one second is all it takes. It’s all she needs to whirl around, to point the gun at him once more.

“You’re a bastard,” she hisses. She’s breathing heavily. She looks wild. She looks crazy. Her usually perfect hair is tousled every which way, her red lipstick is smeared around her mouth, and her cheeks are stained grey from her mascara running down her face.

“You’re a murderer,” he wheezes back, tears stinging the backs of his eyes.

“I did what I had to do,” she snaps. “You were miserable with Zayn, which is why you started hooking up with Niall, even though you wouldn’t admit it. And Niall- He was using you, Harry. You just couldn’t see it.

“But I- I was there the whole time. I was there the _whole_ time, and you never saw me because you were too busy wasting your time with them. I had to do something. We were meant to be together, and I had to do _something_ to make you see that.”

“You could have just asked me out.”

She shakes her back and forth. “You would have said no.”

“Then why do you keep saying that we were meant to be together?”

“Because we were!” she shouts, eyes wide and wild. “We _are_! If you would just- If you would _cooperate_ \- If you would have left it alone, and stopped worrying so much about Niall, then everything would have been fine. We would have been fine, Harry.

“This is your fault. I have to kill you, now, and it’s all your fault. You should have left it alone. Why couldn’t you just leave it alone, baby?”

Harry licks his lips, swallows hard around the lump in his throat as he takes a step forward. His whole face still hurts, and his chest sort of feels like it’s on fire – but she’s hesitating, she doesn’t want to shoot him and he can use that to advantage if he’s careful. “Because, Taylor,” he murmurs, a weak smiles tugging at his lips as he inches closer. She seems too caught up, staring at him, to notice. “Because I loved Zayn, because I’m still in love with Niall, and because you’ll never be as important to me as either of them.”

She screams as she lunges for him. He moves away. She tries to grab his arm, to pull him back – but he whirls around quickly, pushes her back and pins her against the wall with one hand around her throat as he uses the other to slam the hand she’s holding the gun in against the wall beside her head.

He’s struggling and grunting, and she’s screaming, as he tries to get the gun out of her grip. He’s stronger than her, but she’s high on adrenaline.

They’re still struggling for control when a shot rings out between them. Harry lets go out of shock. She pushes him. He trips on the throw rug on the floor, falls hard on his ass. She stalks towards him, presses the gun against his temple and screams.

He kicks her feet out from under, then, and she lands hard on the floor in front him. The gun falls away from her too; it skids across the hardwood floor. They both scramble over each other to get to it.

Harry reaches it first. Stumbles to his feet. And, finally, he points the gun at her. He’s panting, and he’s aching, and he’s dizzy – and he wants to do it. He wants to shoot her, wants to make all of _this_ worth it. Eye for an eye. Revenge. He wants it all. But, unlike her, he can’t imagine ever actually coming to terms with taking a life. That’s not to mention the fact that killing her would mean prison time and, well, she’s certainly not worth spending any amount of time behind bars.

“Harry,” Taylor whimpers. She’s sitting on the floor, in nothing but her bra and knickers, staring up at him with wide, doe-like eyes and flushes cheeks. “Baby, please-“

“Shut up,” he hisses.

“W-We can work this out, baby. We-“

As if on cue, the sound of the front door slamming against a wall echoes around the house. Shouting can be heard from downstairs, and Harry recognizes one voice as belonging to Detective Corden. He shouts back that they’re upstairs, keeps the gun pointed in Taylor’s direction as he waits and listens with baited breath as several pairs of footsteps draw closer and closer.

Corden is the first to enter the bedroom, followed by two police officers in uniforms. All of their guns are raised.

“Oh, thank god, James!” Taylor gasps and breathes and cries, all at once. “He’s- He killed Zayn and he’s going to kill me too! I’m so scared, James, I-“

Harry lowers the gun, but holds it out for one of the officers to take, and Taylor looks like a deer caught in the headlights. Her gaze shifts rapidly between Harry and Corden. Realization settles in a moment later, whilst both officers haul her to feet.

“It’s over, Taylor,” Harry mutters, although he can barely stomach it.

James takes her arm, and turns her around as he clasps a pair of handcuffs around both of her wrists, despite her protests; he reads her her rights while one officer wraps a blanket around her; "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

Harry watches them lead her out. She’s crying, screaming for the officers to let her go, pleading for Harry to tell them that she didn’t mean it, that it was an accident – and Harry feels nothing. At least, nothing for her. Because he does feel a little bit light-headed and dizzy, feels a bit sick to his stomach still.

“Hey, kid,” Corden says, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Harry looks at him, but doesn’t really see him.

“Sit down, yeah? Just- Calm down for a minute, and then I’ll take you to the hospital, yeah? Get that nose patched up first, then worry about getting your statement.”

Only then does he realize that he’s bleeding. Only then does he actually sit down. And only then does he finally feel like he can breathe.

X

Theo is the first to see him. He’s also the first person Harry sees upon walking through the doors to the A&E, with Corden at his side. (His face still hurts, but he doesn’t think that his nose is actually broken. Still, though, Corden wouldn’t take ‘no’ to a trip to the hospital for an answer.)

“Harreh!” the toddler shouts, his voice only slightly muffled by the dummy in his mouth. He has his stuffed dinosaur under one arm, and his favourite blanket tucked under the other as he climbs down off of Bobby’s knee. “Nile! Harreh’s ‘ere too!”

Harry stops in the middle of the room as Theo makes a run for him. _Niall’s here? Why is Niall here? Where? And why are Bobby and Greg and Denise here? What-_

Theo crashes against his legs at the exact same moment that Harry’s frantic gaze settles on where Niall is, standing at the main desk halfway across the room. Niall’s eyes are wide as he stares back, and Harry is only vaguely aware of the fact that Detective Winston is with him.

Harry reaches a hand down to ruffle Theo’s hair right before Denise gathers him in her arms – which is good timing on her part, because suddenly Harry’s arms, and all the space around him, is full of Niall. His arms are around Harry’s neck and his face is buried in Harry’s shoulder and- It’s the greatest relief.

He sags against Niall. Curls his arms around Niall’s back, wraps his fingers up in the fabric of Niall’s shirt, dips his face into the curve of Niall’s neck. He breathes Niall in; relishes in the fact that despite hours upon hours of being stuck in a cell – and being away for years before that – he still smells, still _feels_ , like Niall.

Niall still feels like home. He still feels safe.

He is safe.

“Niall, what- What are you doing here?” Harry murmurs when he pulls back to look at him, to inspect him. That’s when he notices the small bandage on his forehead. His brows furrow in confusion, and suddenly it doesn’t matter in the slightest why he, himself, is here. “What happened?”

“I- I kind of passed out, and hit my head on the bars of the cell,” Niall tells him, his voice but a whisper. “Had to come get checked out, and it turns out I have a concussion. What are _you_ doing here?” His gaze is trained on Harry’s nose, which while no longer bleeding is still incredibly sore and massively swollen.

Harry licks his lips, digs his hands into the front pockets of his trousers. “Um- It was Taylor,” he murmurs, and he knows that he doesn’t have to explain much more. “I confronted her, and-“

“Are you hurt? What’d she-“

“I’m fine, I just- She head-butted me at one point and Corden wanted me to get checked out. I’m fine. Why did you pass out?”

“I, uh- I remembered everything, and-“

“Styles?” Corden interjects, then, quite literally – stepping forward almost as if he’s looking around the corner of a wall. “I’m afraid we have to get going.”

As if on cue, Winston saunters up behind Niall. “As do we, Horan. I have to file some paperwork back at the station before your family can take you home.”

“Yeah, uh- Okay,” Niall murmurs back to him, although his gaze doesn’t leave Harry’s. He clears his throat. “I’ll, uh- I’ll see you later? We’ll talk?”

Harry nods, swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, of course.”

Niall smiles weakly, squeezes Harry’s arm before he walks away with Winston at his side once more.

Bobby pats him on the shoulder as he follows close behind. He’s followed by Greg and then Denise, who leans in to press a gentle kiss to Harry’s cheek, and Theo, who waves at him carefully so as to not drop his dinosaur.

Only then does it begin to sink in. Taylor. Niall. _Zayn_.

Zayn and Niall and _Taylor_.


	16. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Harry, you couldn’t have known. There’s no way that you could have known.”
> 
> “I know,” he murmurs. “I mean, I know, I just- I can’t stop thinking back, trying to remember if there were any signs, or just anything that should have been a red flag for how insane she is and – I can’t think of anything. And it makes me sick. She’d been the reason Zayn died – the reason everyone’s lives got flipped upside down – the whole time, and I… I was with her. I slept with her. I shared a bed with her, I bought a house with her, I- I was prepared to spend my life with her. It makes me sick.”
> 
> Me too, Niall thinks, but doesn’t say.
> 
> “And- I can’t figure out why I couldn’t see it,” Harry says. “I was so sure that you had nothing to do with it. I knew that you couldn’t have. If I could see that- If I could see that, then why couldn’t-“
> 
> “You can’t think like that,” Niall says softly, shaking his head. “That’s not the same thing.”
> 
> “Maybe not, but- It feels like it is.”

Niall wakes in the middle of the night, not because of a nightmare or because he simply can’t sleep – but because there’s a slight dip in the mattress next to his legs. He stirs and cracks an eye open just enough to see through his lashes; he pretends to still be asleep. A smile tugs slightly at his lips as he watches Theo climb onto the bed with Rex, his dinosaur, tucked under his arm.

Theo’s fatigue shows in how unsteady he is as he crawls up the bed beside Niall. He’s careful when he drags back the sheet Niall had pulled up to his neck earlier, before tucking himself into the curve of Niall’s chest and pulling the sheet back up. He’s out like a light within seconds of his head hitting the pillow.

Niall, however, stays awake. He brushes a hand through Theo’s hair, watches his nephew sleep.

Greg had told him earlier, sometime after Niall had been released from the police station and before Bobby had served a typical Sunday roast, how out of sorts Theo had been when Niall had been arrested. He’d said that Theo had cried for hours, that Theo had barely slept that night – or the night after. He’d said that Theo had convinced himself that Niall had left _him_ , and that he was equal parts upset and angry about it.

And, looking back now, it had shown. The minute Theo had laid eyes on Niall in the hospital, it had shown in how tentative he was of Niall’s presence, like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of him standing there. Only when Niall had crouched down, whilst ignoring the dizzy spell his concussion had given him, and opened his arms with a whispered, “It’s okay”, had Theo given in and launched himself into Niall’s chest.

Theo had barely let Niall out of his sight after that. (Not that Niall had been allowed to go very far, or do very much, what with Bobby confining him to the sofa in the living room in light of his concussion.) He’d even begged Greg to let him sleep over tonight. And now here he is, crawling into Niall’s bed in the middle of the night. It’s like he’s afraid that Niall is going to just up and leave without telling him, despite promises not to. It’s like he thinks that if he’s there with Niall, then he can stop Niall from leaving if he has to. He’s a smart little boy. But he’s also just paranoid.

And the thought of leaving him, eventually, makes Niall's heart hurt.

X

He hears them before he sees them; Bobby whistling along whilst frying up some eggs in a pan on the stove to the tune that Theo is humming whilst perched at the kitchen table as he draws across otherwise blank paper. Niall stands in the doorway for a moment, remains unnoticed, and watches. Neither one of them are paying attention to each other, and yet they’re in perfect harmony. It makes Niall wonder how many times a week they do this. (It makes Niall think about how he would sing and his father would whistle along to the tune of his voice every morning before he went off to work.)

Theo is the first on to see him. “Morning, Nile!” he whisper-yells.

Niall grins as he walks further into the kitchen, ruffles Theo’s head of hair with his fingers. “Hey, bud.”

The toddler brings a hand up to his face, curves his fingers around his mouth like he has a secret to tell, and then actually does whisper, “Bobs told me talk quiet in case you have a ache in your head. Do you have a ache, Uncle Nile?”

“Nah, pal. My head is fine.”

Theo grins, and then promptly goes back to colouring.

“Morning, da,” Niall says, walking up behind his father.

Bobby flashes him a smile. “Mornin’, son. How’d you sleep?”

“Great, actually. Where’s Denise and Greg?”

“Greg had a work emergency so Denise drove him in. She should be back shortly.”

Niall hums.

“Breakfast will also be served shortly,” Bobby says. “And then Theo and I were thinking we could watch a movie today. Which one did you want to watch again, lil man?”

“Cars!” Theo shouts, though his gaze remained trained on the paper in front of him.

“Right, yes, Cars! A love for cars must run in the family.”

“Skipped Greg’s generation though,” Niall laughs.

Bobby smirks, but says nothing until he asks, “You gonna join us?”

“I thought you had to work today.”

“Took the day off.”

Niall sighs. “Da, you don’t have to babysit me. I have a concussion, it’s not a big deal.”

“It could be,” Bobby points out. “Now, what do you say? We could even have popcorn for lunch. Also, I was thinking that after that we could-”

“I was, uh- I was gonna go see Harry later, actually.”

Bobby blinks, looks a bit taken back. “Oh. Yeah- Alright, well, we’ll drive you.”

Niall shrugs, nonchalant. “I was just gonna drive myself.”

“Niall-“

“The doctor said I’m fine to drive. I’ll be fine.”

Despite Niall’s reassurance, his father still looks weary. Still looks worried. And, because he’s his father’s son, he knows that Bobby is far too stubborn to give in. “Fine,” Niall sighs. “I didn’t really wanna drive anyway.”

Bobby smirks. “Mhm.”

X

“How much longer are you stuck here for?” Louis asks a few hours later. He presses a kiss to the top of Freddie’s head before placing him down on the play mat Theo had spread out across the living room floor.

Theo, while older, loves playing with Freddie.

“Couple more days,” Niall says, as he leans back against the back of the sofa. “I could, technically, fly out now if I wanted to, but the old man of the house would literally have my head. He won’t even let me drive meself over to Harry’s later.”

“Speaking of-“ Louis hums as he sits down next to Niall. He sprawls himself up, rests his socked feet against the edge of the coffee table. “He’s staying with his mum for a few days.”

Niall cocks an eyebrow curiously. “You seen him?” He hasn’t spoken to Harry since seeing him at the hospital yesterday. He’d thought about calling Harry last night, but instead figured that the conversation they both needed to have would be better to have in person anyway.

“Briefly. He wasn’t really up for it, said he hadn’t really slept last night so he wanted to lie down. You?”

“I saw him yesterday at the hospital. He looked rough – and not just because his nose was swollen.”

“Yeah,” Louis murmurs, his fingers absentmindedly playing with the drawstring on his joggers. “I think he’s taking it pretty rough. ‘s why he’s staying with his mum; he doesn’t want to stay in that house, probably doesn’t want to sleep in that bed…” He trails off, then, and stares at where Theo and Freddie are each rolling a little toy car over the mat.

Niall nods silently. He wouldn’t want to sleep in that bed either, if he were Harry. (But, then, who would, after finding out that your fiancé had killed your ex-boyfriend?) He doesn’t blame Harry for not wanting to stay in that house. Hell, Niall had blamed himself for what he thought was just an accident and he hadn’t even been able to stay in the same country. He wouldn’t have any room to judge even if he wanted to.

“It’s fucked up, what happened,” Louis mutters, then.

“Yeah,” Niall whispers.

“And to think that nobody had a clue, that nobody would have ever known if you hadn’t come home – that Harry might never have known and that he might have spent the rest of his life with-“

Niall pushes himself forward rather abruptly. It makes him sick to his stomach to think about it; thinking about Harry with Taylor made him feel sick enough to begin with, but thinking about it now – thinking about Harry being with the woman who _killed_ Zayn and tried to set him up for it- It makes him wonder how sick it makes _Harry_ to know it. And then there’s the fact that, in a way, he’s still to blame. His stomach flips over and he bends himself in half, rests his elbows on his knees and rubs his hands over his face.

“Sorry,” Louis mumbles. “Shit, mate, I-“

“It’s okay,” Niall whispers, shaking his head slightly. “I just… I gave her the information, I gave her the means to do it- I mean, it might not be my fault in the bigger picture, but it’s because of me that she-“

“You need to stop that, Nialler,” his friend says. He leans forward to, sets his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands between his thighs. “You need to stop carrying this blame you have – especially now that everyone knows the truth. It wasn’t your fault. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I told her about us. I-“

“All you did was give her someone to blame, mate. She would have killed him even if you hadn’t told her, she just would have intentionally made it look like an accident. It wasn’t your fault.”

Niall licks his lips, swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “I wish it was that easy for me to believe.”

“It should be,” Louis says. “Because it’s the truth.”

Niall thinks the jury might still be out on that.

Louis leans sideways against the arm of the couch, then. “Are you gonna go see him?” he asks, changing the subject if only slightly.

“Yeah, later tonight.”

“Good. You can’t leave him behind without a goodbye this time.”

“Yeah,” Niall whispers.

It’s more than that, though. It’s more than just not leaving without saying goodbye. It’s more than even the two of them just needing to talk about it. It’s that Niall sort of owes it to him.

Niall owes him everything, really.

+

_The room is quiet when he walks in. And, if Niall didn’t know any better, he’d think it was empty too. But Niall does know better, and he knows that the makeshift tent, made out of blankets and pillows, strung up above Harry’s bed is occupied._

_Less than 30 seconds after he closes the door behind him, he’s proven right by the muffled voice telling him to go away._

_“It’s me, Haz.”_

_He’s met with nothing but silence, and Niall takes that as an invitation. “Your mum let me in,” he says as he crawls into the tent through the tiny slit between where the solid blue sheet and the blue plaid duvet meet. He’s met, then, with a pouty looking Harry, chin buried in knees he’s got pulled up to his chest, staring back at him with sad, green eyes. “She’s worried about you.”_

_Harry looks away, then._

_“I’m worried about you.”_

_“I just don’t get it,” Harry whispers. His voice is a bit hoarse, but Niall can’t tell if it’s from the fact that he’s been crying – the little red spots scattered across his cheeks give him away – or if it’s because he probably hasn’t spoken to anyone in hours. (Niall reckons that it doesn’t really matter, in the end.) “Everything was fine, and now it’s not. And he just- I begged him not to leave and he just left. Why did he leave?”_

_Niall reaches forward to rest his hands on each of Harry’s ankles. “This is between your parents, Harry,” he says softly, having been-there-done-that. “Your parents are breaking up, but they aren’t breaking up with you and Gemma. He left because they both need it, but he didn’t leave you.”_

_“Feels like it,” the curly-haired boy mutters, dipping his head down to rub his now wet eyes against the sleeve of his jumper._

_Niall moves closer carefully. “I know. I know it’s hard, and confusing, and I know how much it hurts – believe me, but- It isn’t about you. And you’re gonna be fine.”_

_Harry sniffs back tears as he lifts his head to look at him. “Promise?”_

_“Promise. I’ll even make sure of it, if I have to.”_

_Harry smiles, then, albeit weakly. “Promise?”_

_Niall grins back, rests his forehead against Harry’s and holds his pinky up in between them. “Promise. It’s you and me, Haz.”_

_Harry hooks one of his pinkies around Niall’s. “Me and you against the world.”_

+

His stomach is in knots by the time Bobby pulls up to a stop outside of the Styles-Twist household. It’s also known as Harry’s childhood home, which is where his mother and stepfather still reside. It’s also a house he hasn’t stepped foot inside in, well, years.

The outside still looks exactly the same. And, like with his own childhood home, he wonders if the inside looks just as identical as before. He reckons that it probably does. Anne is quite the creature of habit. (But, then, most small town folk are, he supposes. Which is why not much has changed around town either.)

“That’s Harreh’s house?” Theo asks, his voice breaking through Niall’s thoughts.

Niall glances back at where Theo is sitting in his booster seat in the back seat. “That’s Harry’s mum’s house,” he says.

“Oh. Do I know her?”

Bobby chuckles. “No, lad, you-“

“Can I meet her?”

Niall smiles at the toddler over his shoulder. “Not today, pal. Harry and I have to talk about something important.”

“Can I come?”

“Hey, Theo?” Bobby interjects. He tosses Niall a look, as if to say that he’ll take care of distracting Theo, before looking back Theo. “What do you say you and I go get ice cream?”

Theo’s little face lights up, then. He grins and nods his head vigorously, kicks his feet excitedly. “Ok. Bye Nile.”

Niall smiles gently as he unbuckles his seatbelt. “Eat some for me, yeah, kid?”

Theo nods, wide-eyed.

“Thanks,” Bobby deadpans as Niall climbs out of the car. “Give us a call when you’re ready to come home.”

“Yeah,” Niall nods. He steps onto the grass next to the driveway leading up to the house, and closes the car door behind him. “Have fun.”

 

Walking into Harry’s childhood bedroom is like walking into a wall of memories. The time he was laughing so hard at something Harry had said that he rolled off the bed and only narrowly missed cracking his forehead on the corner of the bedside table. When they pulled their first all-nighter, and then both got grounded by Anne come morning – only to spend all afternoon in bed, asleep. The three days they spent holed up, and more or less quarantined, in the bedroom after Harry had convinced him to run through the streets in the middle of a storm naked. The night Niall had been the one to crawl through Harry’s window, before crawling into Harry’s bed and burying himself within the safe confines of Harry’s arms; the night he couldn’t sleep because his parents had just told him that they were back together and he was afraid to get too happy just in case it wouldn’t work out.

It steals a bit of his breath, and tugs gently at his heartstrings.

There isn’t a tent this time around, as he walks inside uninvited – and quite possibly unwanted, but there is a lump on the bed. “Haz?” Niall calls out softly. “Your mum let me in.” He closes the door behind him.

To his surprise, Harry answers rather swiftly. “I figured as much.”

Niall sits on the bed, closer to the footboard than the blob that is Harry. “She sent a croissant up with me.”

“’m not doing carbs right now,” Harry mutters.

If it were any other day, any other circumstance, Niall would simply roll his eyes, and toss the croissant at him despite knowing that he won’t eat it either way. Now, however – Today, well- It’s different. Everything is different. “Yeah, well, according to her you haven’t eaten at all in the last 24 hours, so I reckon a little bit of carbs isn’t going to do much damage.”

Only then does Harry come out from under the blankets, and it’s only to stare at Niall.

Niall sighs. “Please eat it.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then at least consider it when you are,” Niall compromises. Compromising doesn’t mean that Harry will actually do it – in fact, Niall knows that Harry will most definitely not actually do it – but it always makes him feel better to have Harry agree to it anyway.

“Fine.”

Harry looks away, then, and Niall finds himself staring. His gaze glides over the panes of his face; the sharp edges of his cheeks and jawline, the side profile of his face as he glares at the wall. Just by looking at him, even before he’d starting to stare, Niall can tell that he’s been crying. The whites of his eyes are pink, his waterlines are red, his eyelids are swollen, and his cheeks are a bit flushed and splotchy – all signs, in Niall’s long history of experience, that Harry has spent the last few hours (at least) crying.

And, suddenly, Niall feels all the more guilty. “I’m sorry,” Niall whispers.

“Don’t-“

“I have to-“

“It’s not your fault,” Harry murmurs, looking across the bed at him again.

Niall sighs. “I told her about us. I got drunk, and I…” he trails off; doesn’t even want to think about it, let alone talk about it. He certainly doesn’t want to have to talk about it with Harry. Except, well, they both know that they need to talk about it, it’s why he’s here and it’s why Harry didn’t kick him out the way he has presumably kicked Anne and Robin out. They have to talk about it. “And then I told her about us. If I hadn’t, then-“

“She already knew,” Harry says. “Or, at least, she suspected that you were in love with me. Besides, she’s the one that took that picture of us, so- She would have found out whether you’d told her or not. It wasn’t your fault.”

Niall looks away, then. He hadn’t known that. He’d known that she was obviously the one to have taken the picture – and then showed it to Zayn, but he hadn’t known that she had already had her suspicions. (Not that changes very much.)

“Besides,” Harry mutters. “If it’s anyone’s fault, apart from hers, it’s mine.”

Niall blinks, taken aback. “Harry, no-“

“I had both of you,” Harry continues, cutting him off. “I had both of you, and if I hadn’t then- I dunno, maybe it would have ended differently.”

“Haz-“

“She killed Zayn because…because she thought he was disposable,” he explains, sniffing back tears. His voice quivers, like he’s about to start crying again. “She figured I’d just…get over it eventually, and that it wouldn’t matter. And she tried to set you up for it because she wanted me to hate you. She was there – she heard me tell you that I’d go with you, over Zayn, if you asked me to. She knew that I loved you…more, and I think- I think she wanted me to hate you so that I wouldn’t go on loving you like she knew I would if she had killed you instead.”

Niall swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “So, what, you think that if it had just been one of us that it would have been different? That she wouldn’t have tried to kill either of us? Why?”

“I don’t- I don’t know, okay?!” Harry’s voice breaks as he tries to yell. He runs a hand through his hair out of frustration, pushes his fringe back away from his face. “I don’t know, I just- I just know that all of this happened because of me. Not even you can deny that.”

“Harry…” Niall whispers. “All of this happened because she was fucking homicidal. That’s why it happened. It wasn’t because of you. You’re a victim, Harry. Just like Zayn.”

“Just like you too, then,” Harry counters.

And, well, Niall can’t exactly deny him that. Not now. Not anymore. It doesn’t keep a new sort of guilt from seeping in, though. Guilt for the fact that Taylor had killed Zayn because Harry had loved him…less. Guilt for the fact that, in a way, it should have been him. He won’t tell Harry that, though. It’s the last thing Harry needs to hear right now.

“She was there that night,” Niall tells, his voice but a whisper. He leans back against the foot of the bed, and picks a spot on the floor to stare at. “She showed up at my house with a bottle of Jameson and that memory stick I gave you a few days later but couldn’t remember where it came from. Winston thinks she drugged the bottle, which would explain how I couldn’t remember so much of what happened. What’s fucked up is that I wasn’t even going to drink it – but then I looked at the memory card, and there was this one picture of…us, and I couldn’t- I just couldn’t take it, so I opened the bottle.

“Not long after that is when Zayn showed up, and he was wild; angry, violent, tipsy. After I managed to calm him down, he asked me for a glass while I explained myself to him – and then one glass turned into, like, four or something. And then he left.

“And I _did_ try to stop him. I followed him out into the garage and I begged him to get out of the car. At one point I tried to grab the keys but he wouldn’t let me. He just- He took off, and I couldn’t get him out of the car.”

“You tried, though, Niall,” Harry whispers. “You tried and now that you know that, you have to remember that. _Especially_ now that we all know what actually killed him.”

“I know,” Niall murmurs back. A _psychopath_ , he thinks but doesn’t say. Instead, he changes the subject. “What are you gonna do now?” he asks.

Harry shrugs, picks absentmindedly at a loose thread on his comforter. “I tried to stay there last night but I was out of there by, like, one o’clock. I couldn’t- I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop thinking about…her, and I- I just- I can’t believe that I fell for it. I can’t believe that I couldn’t see it.”

“Harry, you couldn’t have known. There’s no way that you could have known.”

“I know,” he murmurs. “I mean, I _know_ , I just- I can’t stop thinking back, trying to remember if there were any signs, or just anything that should have been a red flag for how _insane_ she is and – I can’t think of anything. And it makes me sick. She’d been the reason Zayn died – the reason everyone’s lives got flipped upside down – the whole time, and I… I was with her. I slept with her. I shared a bed with her, I bought a house with her, I- I was prepared to spend my life with her. It makes me sick.”

 _Me too_ , Niall thinks, but doesn’t say.

“And- I can’t figure out why I couldn’t see it,” Harry says. “I was so sure that you had nothing to do with it. I _knew_ that you couldn’t have. If I could see that- If I could see that, then why couldn’t-“

“You can’t think like that,” Niall says softly, shaking his head. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Maybe not, but- It feels like it is.”

And Niall gets that, which is why he doesn’t protest, but he wishes that Harry didn’t feel that way all the same. (The irony of the fact their roles seem to have reversed – in that it’s now Niall wishing that Harry didn’t blame himself – isn’t lost on him.)

“I’m selling the house,” Harry says suddenly.

Niall blinks. “Yeah?”

Harry nods, “I have to. I can’t stay there.”

“You gonna get another place, then?”

“Mum said that I can stay here for as long as I need to, so I think I’m gonna take her up on that offer. Focus on selling the house first, then…figure everything else out after.

“What about you?” Harry asks, then.

“’m gonna book a flight for a few days from now,” Niall admits. “Get back to work as soon as the boss will let me.”

Harry cocks a curious eyebrow. “Can you even fly with a concussion?”

Niall shrugs. “I might get a migraine, but yeah- I can fly. Winston said he’s going to call me in a couple of days with an update for whatever legal things they need to talk to me about, and after that I’ll be good to go. I’ll have to come back for some time during the trial, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

Harry is silent for a moment. Almost too silent. Like he’s thinking – or, rather, debating. And then it comes, and Niall already knows that he should have seen it coming. “So… You aren’t even going to consider staying, then?”

Niall sighs, “Harry-“

“I mean, it’s a valid question, isn’t it? Is it even something you’ve considered?”

“I have a life in LA, Harry. I have a job-“

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No,” Niall snaps. “I haven’t considered it.”

Harry shakes his head, but says nothing else. Instead, he climbs off of the bed completely and heads straight for the window; it’s like he needs to be able to look at somewhere other than the four and a half walls surrounding him, like he needs to look somewhere other than at Niall.

“Please don’t start,“ Niall whispers.

Harry scoffs, then. “Have you even thought about anybody but yourself?”

“You know I have.”

Harry snorts. “Well, evidently you just don’t care enough then.”

Niall blinks, taken aback. “What the bloody hell-“

“And here I thought Maura’s death might have been the one thing to change your mind.”

“Don’t,” Niall growls, pushing himself to his feet. He heads in the opposite direction, towards the door, but then stops when he’s halfway there and whirls around hard, pointing a finger in Harry’s direction. “Don’t you dare bring _my_ mother into _your_ fucking sob story.”

“ _My_ sob story?” Harry asks, laughing bitterly as he turns around to face the Irishman. “This isn’t even about me-“

“Bullshit, it’s not about you,” Niall hisses. He should have expected something like this to happen. He should have known that Harry wouldn’t take kindly to the fact that Niall would actually still be leaving after all this. Although, perhaps he did know. Perhaps the thing he wasn’t expecting was for Harry to use such a low blow against him.

“Unlike you, I can think about people other than myself. Like Bobby, and Greg, and-“

“Fuck you,” Niall mutters as he turns to leave. He’s shaking. He’s trembling with rage, with anxiety – with the need to escape before he says something he’ll regret.

“You don’t have a fucking clue, Niall.”

Against Niall’s better judgment, he turns back around. “About what?!”

“About how unbearable it was for your family while your mother was sick and _you_ weren’t here!”

Niall blinks, his breath caught in his throat. His stomach churns, and he swears his heart stutters slightly. It’s something he’s always refused to think about, something he’s always forced himself not to dwell on. He hates that he hadn’t been here – for any of them, but most of all for his mother. He hates that he’d let his fears, and his anxieties of returning to the very place he’d fled the moment he could get in the way. He hates himself for not being stronger.

“You weren’t here, Niall,” Harry says, and his voice is surprisingly soft. “They needed you, and you were too afraid of coming home to be here with them. You were so afraid to come home that you not only missed saying a proper goodbye to your mother, you missed giving your mother a proper goodbye.”

“Fuck you.”

“And now, after everything that’s happened, you still won’t even consider staying – or just…coming home.”

Niall shakes his head. “I have a life in LA, Harry, I can’t just-“

“Can’t just what?” Harry asks, eyebrows raised skeptically. “Pack your things and leave? You and I both know that you can. You had a life here once. You can have a life here again. You can give Bobby his son back. You can have a relationship with your brother again. You can be a real uncle to Theo-“

“A _real uncle_?” Niall seethes. “Fuck you.” He turns to leave again, only to whirl around once more. “You know, at least when I leave, that means that you’re free to go out and fuck whoever you want. The only difference is that this time it probably won’t be a murderer.”

The look on Harry’s face is that of utter betrayal. But Niall refuses to dwell on it. He knows that that, too, was a low blow, perhaps even lower than Harry’s, but he refuses to take it back. Fuck him. Fuck Harry. Fuck everything.

He barely makes it out the front door when Anne calls out to him. He doesn’t plan on stopping – but then she calls out to him a second time and, well, it’s Anne. He stops walking and turns around to face her as she comes towards him. She takes his face in her hands, looks him in the eyes, and only then does he realize that he’s crying because she’s wiping at his cheeks. Only then does he realize that everything kind of…hurts.

“He didn’t mean it, sweetheart,” she whispers tenderly, motherly. And only then does he think about how much he’s missed her.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and shakes his head as he looks away.

“He doesn’t mean it. He’s just- He’s angry, and he’s upset, and he’s scared – and he’s taking it out on you. He doesn’t mean it.”

“Sounds like he does,” Niall mutters, sniffing back more tears.

She lifts his face and presses a kiss to his forehead. “He loves you so much, Niall. He’s _always_ loved you. He tried to move on, and he may have grown up in the last few years, but he’s always loved you.”

“I know,” Niall whispers, despite everything. He doesn’t have it in him to say that he has too. But he reckons that he doesn’t have to say it for her to know it anyway.

She lets him leave after that, with a promise to stay in touch. It’s a promise they both know that he might actually keep now. And as he walks down the driveway, and begins the 20 minute walk back home, he realizes that he isn’t sure what hurts more; that Harry would throw all of that in his face, even if he doesn’t mean it, or the fact that he’s not exactly wrong.

X

“I’d like to make my presence known,” Bobby starts, as he struggles to climb through the window, “before I startle you enough that you fall off the roof.”

Niall did startle, a tad, when Bobby had begun talking, but only enough to make his shoulders twitch and his heart skip a beat. What startles him more than his father’s voice, is the fact that Bobby knew he was out here.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Bobby snickers as he settles down on the shingles next him. “I only pretended to be oblivious – both when Harry was crawling through the window to get in, and when you were sitting out here.”

“Why’d you never say anything?”

“’cause I was one of the cool parents, of course,” his dad grins. “And, also- I trusted you not to fall off. And I trusted you not to let Harry fall off either.

“As for what the two of you got up to in here goes- That I _was_ oblivious to. But only because I just thought of the two of you as the kids you used to be. Inseparable. I suppose in a sense I was right, it was just for wrong reasons.”

“Wrong reasons indeed,” Niall mutters. He keeps his gaze trained on the stars in the sky.

“You have to stop beating yourself up over it, Nialler,” Bobby says softly.

“Over which part?”

“Every bit of it.”

 _That’s easier said than done_ , Niall thinks but doesn’t say.

“Including the situation with your mum,” Bobby whispers.

Niall’s gaze snaps towards his father, then, to find him looking back.

“I know you carry guilt for not being here, and-“

“As I should,” Niall points out.

“Niall-“

“I had every opportunity to come back and see her, to come back and be here with you and Greg and Theo, but I was too scared of coming back here – I was too scared of having to see Harry and acknowledge what happened again – to get on a plane,” the younger Horan mutters. “I should have been here, but-“

“We understood,” Bobby tells him. “Your mother understood. She probably understood more than any of us.”

Niall feels a sob ball up in his throat, but he swallows it down hard.

“And now that we know what was really going on with you, your brother and I understand ever more. You have to let go of this guilt you feel, otherwise it’s going to eat you alive.”

“It already has,” Niall whispers.

“All the more reason to let go, yeah?” Bobby murmurs back.

Niall nods. He gets it. He does. He gets that what happened to Zayn wasn’t really his fault, just like it wasn’t really Harry’s fault – but it still feels that way, for different reasons than before. And he understands that his not being around for his mother’s illness isn’t something that he should beat himself up with – but it doesn’t stop him from feeling terrible because of it. He gets what Bobby is telling him, and he understands what he’s trying to say. He does.

“It’s easier said than done, I know,” his dad says, then. “Just- Try, yeah? That’s all I ask. We want you to be happy – to let yourself be happy. So just try.”

“Yeah,” Niall says. “I’ll try.”

Silence falls between them, then, and Niall finds himself leaning back. There’s a breeze tonight. It’s cool, but not cold. It’s sort of perfect for how he feels. And he finds himself wondering that age old, cliché question: How many people are doing what he’s doing right now, staring up at the sky and thinking about their lives? He hopes that whoever is, is thinking about a different kind of life.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Bobby asks, then. He doesn’t have to clarify for Niall to know that he’s referring to Zayn – or, rather, Taylor.

Niall shakes his head. “’m sort of all talked out,” he murmurs.

“Alright,” Bobby hums, as he pushes himself up onto his knees to turn around and face the side window. “I’m gonna head back inside, but if you feel like you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

Niall nods. “Thanks, da.”

Bobby ruffles a hand through Niall’s hair, whilst keeping the other firmly planted on the roof so that he doesn’t topple over. “I love you, kid.”

“Love you too.”

 

No sooner does Bobby disappear from the rooftop, does Niall’s phone buzz in his pocket. He thinks it’s a text, thinks to himself that he’ll look at it later – but then the vibrating continues, and continues. He sighs, slips a hand into the pocket of his joggers, and pulls it out face up. His stomach plummets.

It’s Harry.

He thinks about not answering it. If he lets it go to voicemail, then Harry will leave a message and Niall can listen to it after without actually having to respond. Instead, however, he finds himself answering it.

_“Niall?”_

He closes his eyes to the sound of Harry’s voice; surprised, uncertain, relieved. “Yeah,” he replies.

“I’m sorry,” Harry murmurs. He sounds soft, sounds apologetic and regretful. Sounds upset, like he’s been crying some more. And, despite being mad at him still, Niall hates that that’s how he sounds. “I’m just a wreck and I took it out on you because it’s easy, and- I didn’t mean it. Please know that I didn’t mean it, Niall.”

“I know,” Niall whispers.

Harry breathes a sigh of relief, but says nothing else.

Niall doesn’t say anything else either, but he can’t bring himself to hang up. He’s pretty content to just listen to Harry breathe. (He thinks that Harry feels the same way, given the fact that he doesn’t hang up either.)


	17. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Explain it to me, then,” Harry pleads. “Make me understand why you’re such a coward.”
> 
> Niall takes a breath, runs a hand through his hair. “We were kids when we first met, Harry, but I- I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember,” he starts, his voice soft. He doesn’t want to fight – the last thing he wants to do is fight. He just- He needs to explain. He wants to explain. “I was so in love with you back then that I let jealousy of Zayn consume me. I was so in love with you back then that I took the opportunity to have you even when I knew that I shouldn’t have. I was so fucking in love with you that I let that consume me too, to the point where nothing – and nobody – else mattered, not even Zayn.
> 
> “I can’t do that again. I can’t let what I feel for you do that to me again. Call me a coward, Harry, but this- Denying you, denying myself of you, not taking you to bed right now, not falling back into it with you – it’s… It’s harder than you realize.
> 
> “If I do it, if I let myself have you – if I stay the night, then…I might never be able to leave.”

“UNCLE NILE!”

Niall wakes with a start seconds before a tiny human pounces on him. He grunts in response.

“Theo, I said to use your inside voice,” comes Denise’s voice as she pokes her head around the corner of the doorframe. She looks stern at Theo, and then apologetically at Niall. Niall shrugs.

“Sorry, mummy,” Theo pouts, crawling off of Niall’s stomach to sit at his side.

“Don’t apologize to me, love.”

Theo looks at Niall, then, as Denise walks away, and reaches a small hand out to touch Niall’s forehead gently. “Sorry if I hurt your head, Nile. Mummy said to use the inside voice, but I forgotted.”

Niall smiles up at him softly, cards a gentle hand through his hair. He could be having the worst day, and this little ball of sunshine would still make him smile. (It’s not lost on him that he’s missed out on that, these last couple of years.) “It’s alright, lad. C’mere.”

Theo does as he’s told and goes in for the hug that Niall offers. Said hug turns into a brief cuddle, before Theo gets antsy and pulls away. “Bobs said for me to come get you.”

“Yeah? Why’d he do that?”

“It’s brunch time!”

Niall cocks an eyebrow curiously. “Brunch time?”

Theo nods excitedly. “He said we can go to the pub to celebrate before you go away again.”

Niall smiles. “He did, did he?”

“Can we go?”

“Yeah,” Niall nods. “Yeah, we can go. Just-”

“Yes!” Theo cheers. “You dress, me tell Bobs.” And then, just like that, he’s gone.

Niall sinks back against the pillows after Theo races out of the room. He stares at the spot where Theo’s hand had made contact with the doorframe to swing himself out into the hallway. A sad smile tugs tentatively at his lips and he shakes his head a moment later as he pushes himself to his feet to get dressed.

Leaving Theo in a couple of days is going to be harder than he may have previously thought it would be.

X

The thing about small towns is that news travels incredibly quickly. Often times it travels far faster than one would, perhaps, appreciate. In Niall’s case, what with his release and Taylor’s arrest just a few days ago, it’s a bit bittersweet. People stare. People watch. People whisper. People smile and nod at him. People try to figure out if he really is as innocent as the papers say, despite evidence and confession stating otherwise. It’s a bit of a whirlwind – which he does his best to ignore, as he enters to the pub. He lets people stare. He lets people watch. He lets people whisper and speculate. And he keeps himself to himself, because he knows the truth now.

The other thing about small towns is that, sometimes, one runs into the only person one is not yet ready to see. This happens to be one of those times, as Niall comes face-to-face with none other than Trisha Malik. She’s leaving just as the Horan clan is entering. His entire body freezes upon seeing her. He can’t move, even as she’s trying to pass. It’s Theo, seconds (which feel like hours) later, that pulls him back into gear – literally by pulling him forward by his hand.

Trisha nods at him as she passes, but she doesn’t say anything. She just ducks her head, and carries on.

A million _‘sorrys’_ are on the tip of Niall’s tongue, but his mouth feels like sandpaper, too rough and dry to function properly even if he weren’t simply too _afraid_ to speak.

“C’mon, Nile!” Theo shouts. “Bobs has a table a’ready.” He tugs gently on the sleeve of Niall’s jumper.

Niall blinks, tears his gaze away from where Trisha is walking towards her car – which is where Zayn’s younger sisters are standing, waiting for her, to look at his nephew. “Uh- Why don’t you go grab us a seat at the table, yeah? There’s something I have to do first.” He waits for Theo to join Greg and Denise at the table, before he turns to go back the way they came.

“Trisha,” he calls out as he jogs across the car park. His feet splash in a couple of puddles he fails to avoid, but he can’t bring himself to care. He catches up to her right before she’s about to close her door on the drivers’ side.

The girls are already sitting inside the vehicle; they all offer him small, shy smiles before busying themselves with their phones. Trisha, however, climbs out of the car and closes the door behind her.

He feels numb as he stands in front of her. Everything apart from the heart threatening to beat out of his chest feels numb, and his tongue feels too big for his mouth. He doesn’t even know what to say anyway, though, because suddenly _‘sorry’_ doesn’t seem like enough.

“Oh, come,” she murmurs, reaching both arms out to pull him in.

He goes, easily. Sort of falls into her, tucks his face into the crook of her neck and wraps his arms around her waist as if he’s holding on to an anchor. As if she _is_ the anchor. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, though it comes out as more of a sob.

“I know,” she says softly, rubbing an arm up and down his back.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. And then- It’s like he can’t stop. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-“

“I know, love,” she tells him. She pushes him back, then, but only far enough to hold his face in her hands. “I know you are.”

He licks his lips as she wipes tears off of his cheeks. “I nev- I never wanted any of this to happen,” he whispers. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

“Niall-“

“I tried to stop him,” he tells her. “I begged him not to leave my house that night because I knew he was drunk. I tried, but- And I know that it’s not what actually killed him, because it was the brakes, but it’s still- It’s still my fault-“

“It’s not, Niall.”

“But it is,” he argues. “As if having an affair with Harry wasn’t enough to hurt him, it’s the thing that got him killed. It’s- It’s the reason he’s dead.”

Trisha shakes her head. “Niall, honey- Zayn is dead because _Taylor Swift_ made it that way. You made some bad decisions, and you did hurt him, but you are not the reason he died. You’re not to blame, not for that. _I_ don’t blame you for that.”

“You should,” he mutters. “You should blame me.”

“And what good would that do, huh?” she asks softly. “What good would that do me, or any of us?”

“I don’t- I don’t know, but-“

“You made some terrible decisions, Niall, which I do blame you for. I blame you, just as much as I blame Harry, for the affair you had. I think you were selfish, and you didn’t care as much about Zayn as you should have – but I also know that those particular decisions don’t make you a _killer_.

“Besides- Zayn forgave you. And if Zayn can forgive you for breaking his heart, Niall, then so can I.”

Niall blinks, confused. “He- What? W-When did he forgive me?”

“Harry hasn’t told you?”

“No…”

“The night Zayn passed, he woke up,” she explains, smiling softly. “It was only for a few short moments, but he told me to tell Harry that it was okay and that he wanted the both of you to be happy.”

Niall feels sick.

“I didn’t think much of it and it slipped my mind before. But then stories of the affair circulated, and then I spoke with Harry – and I realized what he’d meant. He _forgave_ you, and he wants you both to be happy.”

At first, Niall thinks he’s hearing things. There’s no way she just said that. Zayn was so angry, so incredibly hurt. There’s no way that Zayn forgave him after being in a coma for weeks. And then- Niall isn’t sure if hearing that makes him feel better or worse. “What do _you_ want?” he asks softly, then. Zayn isn’t here, is the thing. Zayn doesn’t have to live with Niall’s presence – however physically distant he might be.

She tilts her head slightly, looks at him calmly. “Besides the things I can’t have?” It’s rhetorical, but Niall nods anyway because he understands what she means; she means Zayn. “I want to move on. I want all of us to move on, and to be happy, however that may be. Holding on to anger, and holding on to guilt is just going to ruin us. We can’t let it ruin _us_ , Niall.”

Niall stares at her silently, feels another tear trickle down his cheek; he doesn’t care enough to wipe it away. It takes him a moment to catch his breath, to find his voice. “I wish there was something more that I could say or do to let you know how truly sorry I am-“

“I _know_ , love.” She smiles, reaches a hand out to squeeze his fingers. “Now, you better get back inside before your father sends out a search party.”

Niall snorts, “Yeah.” Although, he’s pretty sure that Bobby knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah,” he whispers, leaning in. He presses a softy kiss to the apple of her cheek. “You too.”

 

  
He slips into the booth quietly, unfazed by everyone but Theo, who crawls out of Greg’s lap and into his, whilst Bobby drones on about a goal Derby County missed the night before. (The sports highlight reel playing on the TV across the pub is probably what set him off.)

And he likes it that way. He likes that nobody makes a big deal of him seeing Trisha after all these years. He liked that they don’t pry, or ask even ask questions at all. He likes that they let him keep it to himself.

And if the other patrons whisper about it behind his back, then so be it.

X

“Uncle Nile?”

Niall glances over his shoulder, across the kitchen, towards where the toddler is hovering in the doorway. He’d only gotten up from the sofa, where they’d been watching cartoons, to get a couple glasses of water. “Yes, Theo?” he asks softly, one eyebrow raised curiously.

“You’ll come home?” Theo asks softly. He sounds so small, so hesitant, so nervous. So uncertain. Too uncertain for a three-year-old boy. “For visits?”

“Yeah,” Niall says softly. He walks across the room to hand his Theo his beaker. He rakes his fingers through Theo’s hair, and Theo lets it coax him into looking up. “I’ll try to come home more often.”

“Promise?”

Niall nods. “Promise.”

The sliding screen door that leads out into the backyard opens, then, and Greg walks inside. He and Bobby have been doing some yard work out back since they got home from the pub earlier, whilst Denise went out to get some errands done. Niall had offered to help them, but Bobby had flat out refused on account of his concussion – and, well, Niall hadn’t quite felt like arguing. Besides, Theo had mentioned watching cartoons with him shortly after, and Niall couldn’t think of any reason to say no. It’s Theo, after all. And it’s cartoons. (He’s kind of missed watching cartoons, if he’s honest.)

“Can you give us a few moments, please, Theo?” Greg asks, as he closes the glass door behind him as well as the screen.

Theo nods briefly before walking away, and suddenly Niall feels like he’s in trouble.

“You heard back from the detective?” Greg asks, once Theo is out of earshot, as he walks towards the fridge. He pulls out a cold beer, and then offers another one to Niall – which Niall declines. “What was his name- Winters?”

“Winston,” Niall says. “And- Not really. It’s basically just a bunch of legal shit they’ve got to figure out with the court now anyway. He said he’d ring me when he had more information on the trial, which might not be for a while.”

“You will have to testify, then?”

“I reckon so, yeah. Don’t imagine she’s gonna go down without a fight.”

Greg hums.

“Winston said that even though she confessed, he has a feeling that her lawyer will advise her to plead insanity.”

“I mean- It wouldn’t be wrong, technically,” Greg points out.

And- Greg isn’t wrong either, Niall thinks. She had to have been a little bit fucked in the head, not just simply homicidal. It just- It shouldn’t negate the fact that she planned to take someone else’s life. Right?

“I want you to know that I never doubted you,” Greg says softly. “I never thought you were guilty.”

“I know,” Niall whispers. “Thanks.”

“Look, I know we don’t really get on – that we never have, but I want the best for you, Nialler. I want the best for you, and if that means living out the rest of your days in LA then that’s fine, but…”

Niall cocks an eyebrow as Greg trails off. “But what?”

“Don’t lie to him,” Greg says, glancing past Niall’s shoulder at where Theo is sitting in the middle of the floor in the living room whilst he stares at the TV. “Don’t make him promises you can’t keep.”

Niall blinks, taken aback. “I’m not-“

“You said you’d come back to visit the last time you took off, Niall, and look at how well that turned out-“

“It was different last time,” Niall insists. “Things are-“ He cuts himself. He wants to say that they’re better now, but they aren’t quite better – at least, not yet. But he feels like they could be, given enough time, where he hadn’t felt that way before. And that has to mean something, right? “Things will be better now. I meant what I told him. I will try to come back to visit more often.”

Greg nods, and glances once more at his son. “Good. Because he’d really like to see more of you.” He looks at Niall, then, and smiles small. “We all would.”

And, well, Niall is no longer above admitting to himself that he’d really like to see more of them too.

X

The lads are all having drinks at Louis’ and Liam’s house; Niall has escaped to the kitchen to fetch another round of beers.

Louis cackles and guffaws at his own joke as he tips backwards into the back of the couch. Harry rolls his eyes, despite the smile on his face, and then immediately turns his attention back to the baby he’s holding steady on his crossed legs on the floor. Freddie seems completely unaware of his surroundings, because all he cares about his kicking his feet at Harry’s calves like he’s trying to figure out how to walk. Liam, oh-so grossly in love, simply just smiles and stares across the sofa at his boyfriend.

They’d decided earlier on in the evening to have a get together; a celebration of justice and closure, of sorts, which also meets a farewell do.

Niall laughs and shakes his head, mutters, “You’re still such an idiot,” as he pushes himself out of the recliner and to his feet. “’m gonna go get another round. Anyone _not_ want anything?”

Shortly after getting no response, Niall makes his way into the kitchen. He glances at the refrigerator, at the pictures and drawings strewn all over the face of it – and then he pauses, freezes mid-step, as his gaze lands rather heavily upon a picture he recognizes quite well. It’s of the five of them; a picture Louis’ mother had snapped at Louis’ 14th birthday party. They’re all wearing ugly Christmas jumpers, and smiles that he’s pretty certain could have lit up the star at the top of the tree that had been in the living room, off to the right, that day. They look so young. They look so happy. Zayn, for some reason specifically, looks the happiest.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath as he wraps his hand around the door handle to pull it open. From inside, he pulls out four bottles of Heineken.

“Can I just say that I’m really glad you came tonight?” Liam says from somewhere behind him.

Niall startles, and whirls around. He wonders, briefly, how long Liam had been standing there before deciding that it doesn’t matter. If Liam isn’t going to call him out on it, then Niall won’t ask questions either.

“It’s been so long that the four of us have been able to be in the same room for…something other than a tragedy. It feels nice.”

“Yeah,” Niall agree, a small smile tugging at his lips. “It does.”

Liam grins back, pats Niall on the shoulder as he slips past him to get to the pantry on the other side. From the pantry, he pulls out another bag of crisps, as well as a small box of animal crackers. Niall presumes those are for Freddie. He makes a mental note that dad looks good on Liam. “So, uh- I also have to say that I’m sorry for doubting you,” Liam says softly. “I just- I didn’t know what to think after finding your pipe cutter, and-“

“Payno,” Niall says, stepping forward and clapping a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “I doubted meself. I- I get it.”

“Yeah, but-“

“I promise, Payno, I get it,” he repeats, rather sternly. Otherwise, Liam might not believe him. “It’s okay, yeah?”

Liam nods. “Okay, yeah.”

When they return to the living room, Louis is sprawled across the sofa with one of Freddie’s toy trucks in one hand and his empty beer bottle in the other, and Harry, who’s been sitting on the floor hogging all of Freddie’s attention for the better part of the last 20 minutes, is still on the floor hogging all of Freddie’s attention.

“Oi, Nialler!” Louis shouts the moment they enter the room, hardly missing a beat. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”

Niall’s stomach drops, and he reckons that Harry’s does too what with the way his gaze snaps away from Freddie to look at him; he looks a bit gobsmacked. Harry stares at him, and Niall finds himself staring back. He hadn’t yet told Harry exactly when he was leaving, is the thing. In fact, he’s barely spoken to Harry at all since Harry called him to apologize after they got into that fight a few days ago. He’d wanted to let everyone have a good time, let them feel a semblance of it feeling like old times even if only for a little while – wanted to keep the smile on Harry’s face for as long as possible, because he’s sure that Harry hasn’t done a lot of that lately.

Louis seems to catch on to their awkward, silent exchange, a moment later. “Shit. You said you told him-“

“He did,” Harry says, pushing himself to his feet. He pulls Freddie up too, and then hands him to Liam. Freddie, unaware of the tension that has all but physically filled the room, reaches for the box of animal crackers the second his little hands are within grabbing distance. “He just didn’t have a set date. I have to wee, but I’d like the baby back when I get back.”

Niall watches him disappear down the hall, before setting all four beer bottles on the coffee table in front of Louis.

“Sorry, mate,” Louis mutters as he leans forward to grab one.

“’s okay, I should have told him sooner anyway.”

“Why didn’t you?” Liam asks curiously.

Niall shrugs, “I wasn’t ready, I suppose.” He pauses, cracks open his beer and tosses the cap into an empty crisp bowl. “I should go catch him before he comes back.”

 

  
Harry jumps, startled, when he opens the door to see Niall standing across the hall. “Jesus, Niall. Warn a bloke.”

“Sorry,” Niall murmurs. “And, wait-“ He grabs Harry’s arm when he turns away, fingers clenching at the fabric of his plaid shirt. He feels a bit small when Harry looks at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my flight being tomorrow. I just- I mean, we haven’t really talked the last couple of days, and I knew we were getting together with the lads tonight, and I wasn’t- I was going to, I just-“

“It’s fine, Niall,” Harry murmurs. He does it in a way that Niall knows it’s not really fine, he’s just pretending that it is for Niall’s sake. And probably for his own too. “Let’s just- Lets just hang out tonight, yeah?”

Niall nods. (Hang out. Nothing more, nothing less. He can do that. They can do that.)

“Now, let’s go. I have a baby to take back. I might even let you hold him too.”

Niall laughs. “If you don’t then I’m telling Louis.”

X

Another thing about small towns is that no matter where you are, everything is in walking distance. Driving is obviously faster, in terms of getting around, but if left without one – or if too drunk to drive one – then it doesn’t really matter, because _everything_ is in walking distance.

Needless to say, Niall and Harry both decide that it’d be best to walk home despite Harry having driven to Louis’ and Liam’s because he hadn’t been planning on drinking more than a beer, two tops – and, well, they’ve both had more than a few too many to drive. So, here they are- Walking. In silence. Tipsy now, as opposed to drunk, the cool breeze having done wonders for the senses. In silence.

Walks like this used to be louder, rowdier – freer. Niall remembers them well, which is surprising considering how drunk he’d been most of them. He remembers them _too_ well. Remembers drunken giggles and playful groping. Remembers awful jokes and tripping over uneven sidewalks. Remembers the backs of his hands brushing against Harry’s, remembers the way his heart would always feel too big, remembers wanting to push him up against a random light post and kiss him senseless.

The closer they get to Harry’s mum’s house, the tighter the ball in his chest feels. His heartbeat picks up speed, his palms start to sweat, and he’s all too aware of exactly where his hand is in regards to where Harry’s is. The silence surrounding him seems louder than the noise he remembers.

It isn’t until they’re walking up the driveway, that he notices a car missing. “Where’s your mum’s car?”

“She and Robin went up to see my Nan for the weekend,” Harry explains, pushing his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.

“That why you came tonight?”

Harry glances sideways at him, raises an eyebrow in question.

“Louis said you haven’t really left the house the last few days,” Niall tells him.

Harry nods. “Yeah. Mum asked if I wanted to go with them, to get away for a while, but I didn’t really feel like being around a bunch of people like that, you know?” And, yeah, Niall knows. “But- I didn’t want to be alone either, so…” He trails off, then, as he steps up onto the stoop.

Niall follows, but hangs back closer to edge than to the door.

“I’m glad I went.”

“Yeah, me too,” Niall agrees. “It was good. I’m glad we did it.”

He sees Harry smile, despite the fact that Harry tries to hide it by ducking his face as he reaches out to unlock the front door. He thinks he should leave right now. Thinks he should just get it over with; say bye, and then walk away. He should treat it like ripping off a plaster.

“Do you wanna come inside?” Harry asks, then. And that is exactly why he should have already left, Niall thinks. “I think mum has a bottle of wine in the fridge. If so, I can replace it tomorrow.”

Niall hovers near the edge of the stoop, stares across the space between them at the hopeful gleam in Harry’s eyes. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Harry blinks. “It’s just wine-“

“You and I both _know_ , Harry,” Niall mutters as he shakes his head. And- He doesn’t even have to finish the thought because he knows that Harry knows. He wishes that he could, though. He wishes, more than anything right now, in this moment, that he _could_ follow Harry inside. It’s just- He really doesn’t think that he can.

Harry looks away, looks down at his feet – at where the toe of his boot is digging into the concrete, looks down the empty driveway at the even emptier street, looks everywhere but at Niall. His eyes are wet, and Niall’s heart is in his throat.

“I should go,” Niall says, his voice but a whisper. He swallows hard, clears his throat, pushes his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket. “My flight tomorrow is pretty damn early, so-“

“Please, Niall-“ Harry cuts himself off, seems to choke on a breath as he steps forward to reach for Niall. He grasps at the lapels of Niall’s jacket, probably mostly to keep him _there_. “Please, just- Stay. Stay tonight,” he begs. “That’s all I want.”

It’s all Niall wants too. It’s all that Niall has ever wanted. He wants it so badly that his heart aches for it, beats so hard against his chest that he’s certain Harry can feel it in his knuckles. He just- “I can’t, Harry.”

“Why not?”

Niall closes his eyes, mostly just so that he doesn’t have to see the tears or desperation shining in Harry’s eyes.

“Ni,” Harry whispers

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Niall asks softly, albeit rhetorically. He raises his arms to pry Harry’s fingers off of his jacket. He turns away, then, and steps down off the stoop. “You just- You don’t understand how hard this is for me,” Niall mutters. “Although, I suppose you wouldn’t, seeing as you aren’t me.”

“Explain it to me, then,” Harry pleads. “Make me understand why you’re such a coward.”

Niall takes a breath, runs a hand through his hair. “We were kids when we first met, Harry, but I- I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember,” he starts, his voice soft. He doesn’t want to fight – the last thing he wants to do is fight. He just- He needs to explain. He _wants_ to explain. “I was so in love with you back then that I let jealousy of Zayn consume me. I was so in love with you back then that I took the opportunity to have you even when I knew that I shouldn’t have. I was so fucking in love with you that I let that consume me too, to the point where nothing – and nobody – else mattered, not even Zayn.

“I can’t do that again. I can’t let what I feel for you do that to me again. Call me a coward, Harry, but this- Denying you, denying myself of you, not taking you to bed right now, not falling back into it with you – it’s… It’s harder than you realize.

“If I do it, if I let myself have you – if I stay the night, then…I might never be able to leave.”

“Then don’t,” Harry whispers. “Don’t leave. Just- Just stay here.”

“I have to leave,” Niall tells him. “You _know_ I have to.”

“You can get a job here, Niall. You can- Bobby would be more than happy to have you stay with him until you figure out living arrangements. And we can-“

“We can what?” Niall asks, folding his arms over his chest. “We can give it another go? We _can be happy_ , the way Zayn wanted?”

Harry blinks, licks his lips. “She told you.”

Niall nods.

“Then- Then why can’t you stay?”

“Because I can’t, Haz,” Niall mutters. “I just- I can’t. Zayn may have forgiven me, Trisha might say that she forgives me, but I – haven’t. Not yet, maybe not ever, I dunno, I just- Can’t.

“Please don’t make it harder than it already is,” he whispers.

Harry tucks his bottom lip in between his teeth, gnaws at it gently as he looks away. “Okay,” he mutters. “Okay. Can I, um- Can I see you off at the airport?”

Niall nods. “If you want.”

“Okay- I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he says, turning back towards the door. He opens it slowly, and then glances over his shoulder as he steps inside. “Have a good sleep, Niall.”

“Yeah,” Niall whispers. “You too.” His hear stutters a bit when closes the door, taken aback by the fact that Harry didn’t even try to hug him goodbye – or even goodnight. But, then- He reckons that Harry probably feels a lot like the way he feels; he’s probably too afraid to hug Niall, afraid that he won’t be able to let go.

And Niall- Hesitates. He hesitates for a brief moment before turning on his heel to head back down the driveway, towards the street. Placing one foot in front of the other, something he doesn’t ever usually have to think about – not even when he’s at his drunkest, has never been harder to do than right now. It’s like his muscles have forgotten how to move. It’s like every fiber of his being is literally protesting having to move, much less have to move away from the house; away from Harry.

He can’t go back though. He wants to- God knows that he wants to, but he can’t.

Can he?

Technically, Bobby does know when his flight is – and despite also wanting Niall to stay, he’d make sure that Niall gets on the plane because he knows that it’s what Niall needs. Therefore, should Niall stay with Harry tonight – and should it make him want to stay permanently, or even longer – Bobby would be his voice of reason. He’d even pick Niall up, if he had to.

It’s not even that, though. It’s less about him fearing being able to leave physically, and more about the fear of not being able to leave emotionally. He’s still in love with Harry, there’s no denying that, and he probably will be, at least to a certain extent, for the rest of his life – and that’s hard enough. Being in love with someone one can’t have, and living with it day-to-day, hour-to-hour, is difficult enough. It’s taken him years to get used to feeling a bit hollow inside – like something is missing, like a piece of his heart just doesn’t feel right, like the air around him is just…off. But staying, going inside and getting back into it, reminding himself of what it was like, letting himself have a taste-

That would be like cutting open a scar that’s nearly healed. Could he really do that to himself? Could he do that to Harry?

The answer to that seems to be yes – because all of a sudden he’s walking back up the driveway. He’s walking faster towards the house than he’d walked to get away from it. It feels like there’s some sort of invisible string tied around his heart pulling him in that direction. It’s not lost on him that his legs seem to have remembered how to function.

His stomach is in his throat by the time he reaches the stoop, and it feels like his heart is going to explode as he raps his knuckles against the wooden door. He breathes in deep, breathes out deep, breathes in deep, breathes out deep; he tries in vain to calm his nerves down, but it’s too late. Everything is shot. Everything feels like it’s on fire.

This is a mistake. He knows it. He knows that he’s going to regret it come morning, when he has to force himself to leave; when he has to leave his heart behind. He knows it – and yet, he breathes a sigh of relief the second Harry opens the door anyway.

Harry blinks, confusion doused all over his face as he stares at Niall curiously. “Wha-“

The thought doesn’t even have a chance to form, before Niall feels his lips collide with Harry’s. It’s all soft and silky and tentative, at first, like he’s relearning what it feels like to kiss Harry; like he’s asking permission, begging Harry to kiss him back, to have him. And then, in what feels like nothing more than a blink of an eye, Harry’s arms are around him and he’s leaning in, leaning down ever-so-slightly – consuming him.

Harry kisses back like his life depends on it. He’s firm, and he’s desperate. He nips at Niall’s bottom lip, moans low in his throat when Niall opens his mouth to him, licks inside, pulls Niall closer. For Niall, it’s like- It’s fireworks exploding behind his eyelids. It’s little fires igniting wherever Harry’s fingers touch him when he slips his hands up the bottom of Niall’s shirt. It’s feeling like he’s flying, like he’s floating, like he’s weightless – and like he’s falling, like he’s nothing but dead weight, like he’s going to crash and then everything around him is going to burn. And yet he can’t bring himself to care, at the moment. Not anymore.

The only reason he does pull away, is because of the way his chest aches from being unable to breathe properly, having been too immersed in all that is Harry to remember how. He’s panting as he presses his forehead against Harry’s, and only then is he aware of the fact that he has his fingers all wrapped up in the fabric of Harry’s jumper, holding him close. Now that he’s aware, he finds himself curling his fingers even more, holding the fabric even tighter, holding Harry even closer. Because now that he’s here, now that they’re both _here_ – he can’t let go- Not yet.

“What-“ Harry breathes, but then cuts himself off – presumably to take another breath. “What-“

Niall shakes his head, which seems to be enough to steal Harry’s voice. He looks at Harry through his eyelashes, as they’re nose-to-nose. “Please- Please, just- Take me to bed.”

“Niall-“

“If you’ll still have me, then please take me to bed, Haz,” he whispers, begs.

“Of course,” Harry murmurs. “But- What changed your mind?” His eyebrows are furrowed in confusion, and Niall reckons that he can’t blame him.

Niall shrugs. “Never been very good at not doing what I shouldn’t do. Just- Just promise me that you won’t try to stop me in the morning, yeah?”

Harry blinks. “That’s- Niall, that’s not what this is for me.”

“I know,” Niall mutters. And, well- He does. He knows that this isn’t just some sort of bribe in order to get Niall to stay. He knows that it’s more than that. “I know that, but- We both need this, yeah? One more time. Please, just- Tell me you won’t-“

“I won’t try to stop you in the morning,” Harry promises.

Harry tugs, then – first, at Niall’s shirt to pull him into the house before closing the door behind the two of them, and then at Niall’s hand. And Niall follows – not only without protest, but _with_ enthusiasm.

He laughs softly when Harry trips as he leads the way up the stairs towards the second floor, snickers and pokes at his hip when he tosses him a banter-y scowl. And, for a moment, it feels like it did before. Feels like they’re just kids, sneaking up the stairs and down the hallway and into Harry’s bedroom in the middle of the night, stifling giggles so that they won’t get caught. It doesn’t _feel_ like they’re about to make a mistake, despite the fact that they’d made plenty back then too. It sort of just feels…normal. Easy. Natural.

It feels like nothing has changed, despite the fact that _everything_ has changed.

The thing about Harry is that as much as he likes foreplay – loves it, really, he almost always wants to rush through it. He rushes through it because. _“Foreplay is all well and good fun, Niall, but it’s what comes after that’s the most fun. Pun intended.”_

And, well, Niall never really minded rushing it, at times. In fact, with the way Harry works his mouth and his fingers, he often found himself relishing in how quickly Harry got down to business. It’s just that Niall also happens to be a big fan of taking his time – especially with Harry. He likes taking things slow, likes taking Harry apart slowly and sensually, loves hearing the noises Harry makes when Niall teases him. He likes savouring it, likes committing every detail, however small, to memory, loves figuring out the new things he can learn if he takes the time.

And Harry’s rushing. He pulls off his shirt faster than Niall can even blink after he kicks the door closed, and then he reaches for the collar of Niall’s jacket with quick hands to push the fabric off of Niall’s shoulders. Niall is only vaguely aware of the soft, barely there sound the jacket makes as it hits the floor, only just registers it as happening when Harry’s fingers, long and broad and a little bit shaky, make quick work of his belt before starts on his own.

“Harry,” Niall murmurs, reaching for his hands. He covers Harry’s hands with his own, pulls them away from the buckle he’d just gotten undone, and squeezes gently as he tugs. Harry stumbles forward, a bit caught off guard, and his hands settle upon Niall’s hips just as he lets go. “Can we just… Go slow?” he asks softly. “I’d just- I’d like to make it last for as long as possible.”

“Yeah,” Harry nods, his voice but a whisper before he licks his lips. He presses their foreheads together, bores his gaze into Niall’s. “Yeah, we can go slow.”

Niall swallows hard around the lump in his throat. He grabs the bottom of his shirt with shaky hands, and pulls it up over his head. His gaze only breaks away from Harry’s for a couple of seconds – for the time it takes get the fabric of the shirt out of the way. And then he surges forward, closes the short gap between their mouths and presses his lips against Harry’s in a hard, bruising kiss as he grips the back of Harry’s neck with his fingers. Harry’s mouth grounds him in a way that nothing else can right now, makes him feel less nervous and more in the moment. He loves Harry’s mouth.

The backs of his knees hit the edge of something soft, and only then does he realize that Harry has walked him backwards towards the bed. One of Harry’s hands slip down to cup one of Niall’s arse cheeks, pulls him up slightly, and then drops him down on the edge of the mattress. Niall moans as he lies back and drags Harry with him; Harry, who sort of falls forward before catching himself by planting his hands into the mattress on either side of Niall’s shoulders. He feels Harry smile against his lips before he pulls back, and-

If Niall didn’t know any better, he’d think he was looking up at an actual god. In fact, he’s not even entirely convinced that Harry isn’t some kind of god. He’s all flushed cheeks, and bright red lips, and dark green eyes, and his dark fringe has sort of fallen over his face and- He’s so beautiful. So-

His thoughts are cut short when he feels Harry grind his own dick against his thigh. He chokes on a groan, squeezes his eyes shut, feels himself grow even harder his jeans. He’s gonna come far too quickly if they aren’t careful. “Harry,” he gasps, running a hand through his hair and tugging, just slightly, until stops rutting against him. “’m gonna come if you keep doing that.”

Harry grins, grinds his dick against Niall’s, this time, and nips at Niall’s chin with his teeth. “Kinda the point, no?”

“Not like this,” Niall breaths, running a hand down Harry’s back.

“Like how?” Harry asks. He reaches down between them, and Niall braces himself for an impact that doesn’t come. He smirks again, then, as he pops the button open on his own jeans. “How do you wanna come, Ni?”

“With you,” Niall whispers. “With you in me.”

Harry grins, presses his lips against Niall’s only briefly. “Yeah?”

Niall nods, his breath caught in his throat as Harry begins a torturously long trail of kisses down his body; down his throat, into his neck, across his chest and through his chest hair, down the middle of his torso, around his bellybutton, and- He chokes on a breath just as Harry drags his tongue over the line where the band of his briefs meets the skin stretched across his hip bones, hisses and pushes the back of his head deeper into the pillow beneath him when Harry slips his fingers inside the band.

“You gonna be okay up there?” Harry asks cheekily as he drags his mouth away from Niall’s skin.

“Stop teasing,” Niall whimpers, thrusting a hand through Harry’s hair. He doesn’t press, or push, or pull – just simply needs to touch him now that he’s so close but so far.

Harry raises an eyebrow, cocks his head curiously whilst running one finger back and forth along the waistband. “Thought you wanted to go slow.”

Niall sighs, though it sounds more like a whine. “Haz, c’mon, I-“

“What?” Harry asks softly. “What do you need, baby?”

“Just- Make love to me,” he whispers.

Harry nods and swallows hard, presses a kiss to the inside of one of Niall’s thigh. He drags Niall’s boxers down slowly; Niall lifts his arse so that the fabric slips down easily. Niall’s cock bounces, and Harry’s mouth waters as he wraps his fist around it. He strokes up slowly, just the way Niall likes, rubs his thumb over the slit. Niall’s wet – almost as wet as he is rock hard, and Harry uses it to stroke his hand back down.

Niall gasps – his eyes roll back into his head, his heels dig into the mattress – when Harry sucks him down. There’s no warning. Just- Wet. Warm. Heaven. He’s in heaven. He grazes down; stares at Harry’s lips, red and wet and stretched around the fat width of Niall’s dick; watches Harry’s head bob up and down, from the head of Niall’s dick the base. He’s always loved watching Harry give head; loves the way Harry looks, loves the way Harry loves it, loves the way it’s so, so good. He loves the way Harry still remembers what he likes, and the way he’s so enthusiastic to give it to him.

He breathes hard through his nose, wills himself not to come. Harry’s teeth get caught on a vein and Niall hisses, toes curling. He thrusts up accidentally and the tip of his cock hits the back of Harry’s throat. There’s an apology stuck on Niall’s tongue – although, if the groan that escapes Harry’s mouth and vibrates around Niall’s shaft is anything to go by, the apology is rather unnecessary anyway.

He feels it in the pit of his stomach, then, and he yanks gently on Harry’s hair. “Harry,” he gasps, pulling Harry off of him with a loud pop. “Fuck, Haz-“ He cuts himself off, too afraid that he’ll come if he keeps trying to speak.

Harry licks his lips, pulls Niall’s briefs all the way down his legs and then tosses them somewhere on the floor. “Do I still got it?”

Niall rolls his eyes, despite the fond smile he feels cracking his face wide open. “You’re such a nerd,” he murmurs, pushing himself up onto shaky elbows. He watches Harry push his own briefs down over the curve of his arse, watches him struggle clumsily to peel them down his legs. And, for the first time in a long fucking time, Niall just- Looks at him. Drinks him in. Commits every sharp line, every soft curve, to memory; memorizes the exact position of every piece of art tattooed into his skin – from the swallows painted just below his collarbones, that he remembers, to the laurels inked across his hip bones, which he’s never seen before. He’d never understood Harry’s fascination with tattoos, but he remembers always thinking that there would never be a better canvas for such art.

“Hey,” Harry murmurs, pinching Niall’s big toe to pull him out of his thoughts. “You still with me?”

Niall nods, smiles, and nudges at Harry’s bum with his toes. “C’mere,” he whispers.

Harry does as he’s told. Slowly. Leaves a trail of kisses back up Niall’s body – narrowly avoiding Niall’s cock – until they’re face-to-face, nose-to-nose. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

Harry moves closer, coaxes Niall in lying back against the pillows at the head of the bed as he settles himself in between Niall’s thighs. He grinds down, drags his own cock against Niall’s and plucks a kiss from Niall’s lips. “Are you sure?” he asks softly.

Niall cocks his head. “Do I look unsure?”

“Not really,” Harry says, voice soft. “Just- Thoughtful.”

“Thinking about you, aren’t I?” Niall murmurs, dragging his right hand up and down Harry’s back.

Harry raises an eyebrow. “What about me?”

“Just… _you_ ,” Niall whispers. “ _This_. I’m sure, Haz. Are you?”

Harry nods. “Never been more sure of anything.” He kisses Niall, then, like his life depends on it. He finds a package of lube and one condom in the drawer of the bedside table to his left. Neither of them are expired yet, which is good. He tosses the condom at Niall, rips the package of lube open carefully and dribbles it over his fingers. He presses in slowly, swallows the moan that escapes Niall’s throat; opens Niall up slowly, like he’s using his fingers to paint the most beautiful picture.

Niall’s in heaven. Again. Where Harry’s mouth is sinful, his fingers are miraculous – and it’s all very heavenly. Harry starts with one finger, his middle, pushes it in past Niall’s puckered rim slowly and drags it almost all the way out. Niall groans, whines every time he gets deeper, gasps when Harry’s lips latch onto his neck.

Harry slips a second finger – his index – in alongside the first, nestles against the walls of his hole – and Niall’s back arches beyond his control. He grasps at the sheets, and tosses his head back as Harry sinks his teeth into Niall’s collarbone. “Fuck,” Harry moans, licking over where his teeth just were. “You’re so tight.”

Niall’s legs shiver when Harry crooks his fingers. “God, fuck-“ he mutters, choking on a moan.

Harry grins, then, lips pressed into Niall’s skin. “Can’t wait,” he murmurs. “Can’t wait to get my dick in you.” And then he sucks at the hollow of Niall’s neck, and his fingers have Niall seeing stars, and-

Niall can’t bring himself to care about the fact that Harry is, probably deliberately, marking him up with his mouth. He thinks, briefly, that he’s in the same boat, that he can’t wait for Harry to get his dick in him either, but then Harry pulls his fingers out to the first knuckle and he can feel a third poking at his rim – and it becomes a reality. He can’t wait for it. He wants it. He needs it.

He brings one hand up to card his fingers through Harry’s hair, and searches the sheets to find the condom he’d dropped just a few moments ago in his haste to do something with his hands and clutch the sheets. “Harry,” he murmurs. “Haz- Now.” To anyone else he might sound utterly incoherent, but he knows that Harry gets it. He knows that Harry understands.

Harry pulls back to look at him, both fingers still very much inside Niall. His pupils are blown out, his cheeks are flushed, his mouth is wet and- Niall wants him. Niall needs him. “One more,” Harry whispers.

“Now,” Niall begs.

“Ni- It’ll hurt-“

“Don’t care,” Niall breathes. He wants to feel the burn, needs to feel the stretch. Longs for it. Wants to feel it for days so that he can remember how it feels to have Harry split him apart. He brings the condom up to his mouth and rips the package open with his teeth – and then he reaches down, wraps his fingers around the long, thick shaft of Harry’s cock and gives it a firm tug. A smirk tugs at his lips when Harry chokes on a breath and dips his head so that his forehead is touching Niall’s chin. “C’mon, Haz,” he whispers, sliding his hand down and then back up. “Give it to me.”

Harry takes a deep, shaking breath as he lifts his head. “Jesus- Fuck, Niall,” he groans, thrusting up into Niall’s hand. “You have to be on a plane for half a day tomorrow-“

“I know.”

Harry pulls his fingers out of Niall’s arse, plants his hand against the mattress to keep himself up as Niall continues to stroke him. “Are you-“

“Harry, I swear to God,” Niall groans, squeezing his fingers. “I can go back home, if you’d rather-“

“No,” Harry growls, pressing a harsh kiss against Niall’s lips. He bites at Niall’s bottom lip when he pulls back. He reaches for the condom that’s still in Niall’s other hand, and Niall smiles as he lets his hand fall away from Harry’s cock.

Niall watches him lean back. Watches him rest his arse against his calves. Lets his hand graze gently over the weird tiger tattoo on Harry’s thigh. Watches him roll the condom on. He spreads his legs wider as Harry shuffles forward. Draws in a breath when Harry rubs the tip of his dick across his rim. He reaches out, curls both hands around the back of Harry’s neck to bring him down. Steals a kiss, licks into Harry’s mouth, and begs; “Please.”

He wants it. He needs it. He craves it.

Harry pushes in slowly, carefully, gaze trained intimately on Niall’s.

Niall winces, slightly, at the burn that spreads through his asshole as it stretches – but it makes his dick harder and wetter.

Harry groans as he bottoms out; Niall gasps. Niall has never felt fuller, hasn’t felt this _good_ in years. It’s been a long time since he’s had a dick in ass; been even longer since he’s had Harry’s. He thinks, vaguely, that that should be illegal – but the thought disappears just as quickly as it had appeared. He curls his legs around Harry’s hips and locks his ankles together whilst Harry waits for him to adjust.

When he starts to move, it’s slow. A long drag out and an even longer drag in. Out. In. All the way out to the tip, and all the way in to the base. It’s nice. It’s gentle. It’s intimate – especially with the way Harry’s looking at him, like he hung the stars in the sky above them, outside this bedroom. And it’s good, but Niall wants more; needs more; craves more. So he unlocks his legs from around Harry’s hips and plants his feet into the mattress, and he grips each other Harry’s round arse cheeks with both hands, and he pulls him in closer, further inside – harder.

Harry groans and stills for a moment, drops his head between his shoulders. He shuffles closer, then, puts a hand on either side of Niall’s hips and digs his fingers into the flesh in the way he knows that Niall likes. He pulls out slowly, all the way out, and then snaps his hips forwards quickly. Niall moans, just barely holds back a yell when Harry’s cock drags over his prostate, and his mouth falls open into a smile. Then, again, Harry pulls out slowly and snaps forward quickly.

The sound of skin slapping against skin is harsh and loud, and it sort of echoes around the room – and Niall relishes it, drowns in it. He meets Harry thrust for sloppy thrust, keeps one hand planted on Harry’s arse and drags the other up his back to grab his shoulder.

“Fuck,” Niall moans – because _Jesus fuck_.

Harry hums, leaves a trail of wet kisses down Niall’s jaw and finds that spot from before. (The spot is already sensitive; Niall knows there’s going to be a bruise.) He shifts, just slightly, and his dick grazes Niall’s prostate again and-

Niall all but screams, clenches down around him and clings to his shoulder. “Fucking hell- Harry- Yes,” he babbles. He moans and he whines, and he chokes on his own breath Harry catches his prostate _again_. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Harry pulls back away from Niall’s neck and captures his lips in a kiss that’s both bruising and loving – and all around fantastic, like he’s making love to Niall’s mouth too. “You feel so fucking incredible,” he whispers.

Niall wants to scream that Harry does too, but the words get caught in throat. He’s close. He’s so close, and so fucking hard, and he hasn’t even touched himself – and neither has Harry, not since he had his dick in his mouth. He doesn’t want to come, not yet, but he wants the friction. Wants to take the edge off, just a bit. His hand drops from Harry’s shoulder, then, and he reaches for his cock only for Harry to grab his hand and push his back against the mattress. “Harry,” he whines.

“Want you to come like this,” Harry pants. “Just like this. Just from me.

“Can you do that?”

And, well- Yeah. Niall can do that. He wants to do that.

“You’re so beautiful,” Harry murmurs, pressing his forehead against Niall’s.

Niall looks up at him. At his dark, green eyes and his cherry coloured lips and pink cheeks. He watches a little bead of sweat roll down the side of his face before disappearing beneath his chin, admires the way his fringe has fallen over his face and moves with every thrust. If Harry thinks that Niall is beautiful, then Harry really is a literal God.

“I love you,” Harry whispers.

Niall stills, freezes all over chokes on a groan as those three little words go straight to his dick. He swallows hard around a lump in his throat. “Don’t,” he whispers back. “Don’t say that, or I’m gonna come.”

“Want you to though.”

“Haz-“

“I love you,” Harry says again, pressing the words into Niall’s mouth.

Niall feels it in the pit of his stomach. It’s close. It’s so fucking close-

“I love you so fucking much.”

His orgasm hits him hard, and he comes with a sob that ribs it way out of his throat before he can even think to try and stop it. He comes in spurts, untouched, across his belly and his chest. Some of it lands on the edge of his jaw and dribbles down his throat. Harry keeps fucking into him, breathes heavily and licks up the come that has made a little pool between Niall’s collarbones – and Niall comes again, his breath jagged and uneven as he pants and groans and all but sobs his relief.

Harry’s hips stutter the minute Niall’s whole body goes a bit lax. He thrusts once, twice more, bottoms out, pushes his face into Niall’s chest – and comes with a strangled, guttural groan. Niall can feel him coming despite the condom that separates them; can feel him pulsing and twitching – and he thinks, vaguely, that if he had anything left in him he’d come again from just that feeling alone. He brushes his fingers through Harry’s damp, sweaty hair to coax him through it.

They stay like that for a long while. Still tied together, limbs intertwined. Hearts beating at a synchronized pace. Panting and giggling and basking in the afterglow that comes post orgasm.

Everything else can wait. Nothing else in the world is as important as this is. Not right now.

X

He watches Harry from across the room with his back tucked into the pillows, the sheets pulled up above his waist. Harry has just finished wiping a cloth down Niall’s chest and then over his own, has just dropped it into the dirty laundry hamper sitting on the outside of the closet; he’s butt naked, all wide shoulders and little hips and long legs, smooth skin stretched across taut muscles. He’s beautiful. Stunning, really.

He tears his gaze away when Harry turns around, focuses his gaze on a chip taken out of the board at the foot of the bed and picks, absentmindedly, at a loose thread on the sheet.

“So,” Harry starts, his voice cutting through the otherwise silent room like a knife cutting through soft butter, as he comes back towards the bed. “When do you start back at work?”

“What?”

“What you get back to L.A.- When do you start back at work?”

Niall blinks, taken aback by Harry’s sudden interest in Niall’s work. In all the days that Niall has been here, Harry hasn’t shown any interest in Niall’s life in L.A. He reckons that Harry just didn’t want to acknowledge the reality of it, before. And he thinks, now, that Harry might just be trying to fill the silence.

“You’ll probably need a few days off, right? Like- Between the jet lag and your concussion, you might need some time to, like, rest-“

“Harry,” Niall murmurs – because unlike Harry, or what he suspects, Niall sort of really likes the silence. “Just- Can we just cuddle, or something? I have to be at the airport in six hours, and I just really-“

“Yeah,” Harry whispers, crawling onto the covers and under the sheets. He leans in close, presses his lips gently against Niall’s; it’s less a kiss, and more just a press of lips, but Niall finds himself chasing Harry’s lips when he pulls away anyway. “Yeah, we can cuddle. And sleep. Do you want big spoon or-“

“Big spoon,” Niall whispers.

Harry smiles. “Good. I want little spoon.”

He turns onto his side, his back facing Niall – and Niall curls himself around Harry, fits his chest against Harry’s back and presses the length of their bodies together. He buries his face in the back of Harry’s neck, breathes him in – he smells a bit like sweat and sex, but it’s _his_ scent that Niall focuses on. He already knows that he won’t get very much sleep, but Harry’s scent is a comfort that he hasn’t had in years and, well, he’ll take what he can get at this point.

X

He has every intention of leaving as soon as he can, as soon as he wakes up. At least, that’s what he’d told himself before he’d drifted off to sleep five hours ago; he’ll wake up at half six, sneak out to the loo to get dressed and call Bobby to come pick him up, and be out by 7 o’clock. That was the plan. And it was a solid plan, because Harry wouldn’t have time to even _try_ and stop him. Except that that plan had gone to shit before he’d even had a chance to fully put it into motion – because the second he woke up, he’d shuffled impossibly closer to Harry, tightened his arm around Harry’s torso and dug his face into Harry’s hair. That’s when he’d realized that there was no way that his plan was going to work.

That’s when he’d realized that leaving – let alone getting out of bed – was going to be harder than he had originally thought. (Not that he’d thought that it was going to be easy. He’s always known that it would never be easy. It’s just, well, he thought that he’d have more willpower, if he’d being honest.)

Unwrapping himself from around Harry’s body and pushing himself out of bed had been difficult, both physically and emotionally. It’s like he could feel the dread seeping into his body through his pores every time he moved. Like his heart was aching because it was literally trying to stay with Harry and he wasn’t letting it. Like every last fiber of him was screaming for him to stop, for him to stay.

And, well, Harry isn’t exactly wrong, is the thing. He could stay. He could live with Bobby until he finds a place, could work with Bobby until he gets a job elsewhere, could have his stuff moved from L.A. to Holmes Chapel and his accounts transferred and his number changed over the course of a few weeks. He _could_ stay. He doesn’t have to go back to L.A.

Except that he _has_ to go back to L.A., because he can’t stay. He has a life in L.A – and he’s not 18 anymore; he can’t just pack up his entire life and use going to university as an excuse to run away from his problems. Things are different now. _He’s_ different now. It’s great that it’s no longer a possibility that he’s a murderer, despite the fact that he still feels guilty for what happened to Zayn, his friend, and for the fact that he indirectly had everything to do with Zayn’s fate even if it wasn’t directly his fault – it honest to God feels like several weights have been lifted off of his shoulders, and he’s incredibly relieved that Trisha, nor the rest of Zayn’s family, blames him or holds a grudge against him, because all of that played a major role in why he couldn’t come home before, but-

He just- He can’t stay. He has to go back to L.A. (Even if it is going to be one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do.)

He knew that last night was a mistake. He knew it last night. And when he finds himself staring at the dark purple bruise that Harry had sucked into his skin, touching it gently, he thinks that it’s the second best mistake he’s ever made. Which is fucked up. He’s so fucked up. The whole thing is so incredibly fucked up – and that’s why he can’t let himself stay. They can’t do this again.

He can’t do this again. And he knows that if he were to stay, then he would do it again. So he has to go.

It’s going on half seven when he hears a car pull into the driveway. He tears his gaze away from Harry’s face – Harry, who’s sleeping the way he always sleeps, on his stomach with his arms folded under the pillow beneath his head – and glances out the window over his shoulder. From this angle he can just see Bobby sitting in the driver’s seat and he can just barely see Theo sitting in the back. His stomach flips over, and his chest sort of hurts – and he’s already dreading having to listen to the voicemail that Harry is going to leave him about how Niall was supposed to say goodbye, about how Niall owed him a goodbye.

Nevertheless, he pushes himself away from the windowsill and grabs his jacket off of Harry’s dresser. He wills himself not to look at Harry as he walks past the bed; he’s spent the better part of the last half hour staring at him, and that’s enough, isn’t it? He’s just about to walk through the doorway when Harry’s voice, nothing more than a whisper, cuts through the silence – and reverberates around Niall’s head like an echo.

“You’re really just- Gonna leave?”

Niall closes his eyes, holds his breath, freezes in the middle of the doorway with his hand wrapped around the knob. He licks his lips and then bites on the bottom one as he tries to calm his rapidly beating heart, as he tries to quiet the butterflies in the pit of his stomach; he hates how disappointed – and borderline devastated – the tone of Harry’s voice is. “Harry,” he whispers as he turns around to face him. “Please don’t- I can’t. I can’t argue with you right now. Please don’t make an argument be the last thing we talk about right now.”

 _Please don’t go back on your word_ , he thinks but doesn’t say.

“I- I’m not,” Harry murmurs. “I just… I just really thought you were at least going to say goodbye this time.”

Niall sighs. “Harry-“

“I’m not mad. I just- I meant what I said last night, and I want to see you off. I want to come with you guys.”

Niall swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Harry pushes himself up, then, and Niall has to turn his whole body away in order to tear his gaze away from where the sheets pool around Harry’s hips. “Why not?” he asks softly. “Afraid I’ll buy a plane ticket today and then follow you to L.A.?”

And, well, he’s not entirely wrong; where he wouldn’t expect Harry to follow him across the ocean, he’s mildly afraid that _he’ll_ be the one that ends up chasing _Harry_ back home.

“Why not, Niall? Why won’t you let me say goodbye?”

The question sounds, to Niall, like taking a knife to his heart – and Harry’s voice is the twist of it. He wishes he could explain. He wishes that he could tell Harry the truth; wishes that Harry would understand. It’s not that Niall doesn’t want him there, nor is it that Niall doesn’t want Harry to say goodbye. Because it isn’t really about Harry at all. It’s about him. Call him selfish, but it’s about Niall not wanting to say goodbye. It’s about thinking that he won’t be able to.

It’s why he didn’t say it before, four years ago. And it’s why he was trying to avoid it today.

“Niall-“

A loud, yet only slightly muffled _ding_ rings throughout the room, then. It’s Niall’s phone – and it’s probably Bobby, wondering what the hell is taking him so long. And, well, he doesn’t have time for this. Not now. “Get dressed,” he finds himself saying. “Bobby’s out front, we need to get going. You can sit in the back with Theo.”

Harry moves quicker than Niall has ever seen him move before. He throws the sheets off and climbs to his feet, stumbles around the room as he tries to dress quickly – and Niall finds that he has to turn himself away again in order to keep himself from staring.

X

The ride to the airport is dead silent. Bobby keeps his gaze on the road almost religiously and pointedly ignores everything, which is more than a bit unsettling considering he’s the kind of person to fill awkward silences with the sound of his own voice, Harry stares out the window and casts Niall an occasional glance in the rear side mirror, Niall keeps himself to himself because, quite frankly, he’s too afraid that he’ll say something he regrets if he tries to hold any kind of conversation, and Theo is fast asleep in his car seat. The tension is so thick that it’s suffocating.

And, well, sitting in the middle of the airport whilst waiting for his flight isn’t any better. The only difference is that Theo is awake. (He’s awake, but his time is mostly being occupied by the games on Bobby’s phone.)

And suddenly it’s too quiet, despite the noise around them. It makes Niall feel sort of anxious, makes him feel like he needs to be the one to fill the silence with his voice. Besides, he kind of does owe Harry an explanation.

He wipes sweaty palms on his jeans as he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. And then he looks sideways, finds Harry staring back from the seat next to him, and swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “It’s, um-“ He clears his throat. “It’s not you, it’s…me.”

Harry’s brow furrows in confusion.

“It’s not that I didn’t want you to have a chance to say goodbye,” Niall admits, his voice but a whisper. “It’s that I…didn’t know that I could. And I didn’t want to take the chance that I couldn’t.”

“Oh,” Harry whispers. He looks away, focuses his gaze on where his hands are clasped together in his lap. “I thought you just…didn’t want to have to deal with me, or something.”

Niall shakes his head. “I kind of wish it were that simple.”

Harry smirks. “I kind of wish _life_ were _more_ simple.”

Niall hums, looks down at his shoes.

“I don’t think I ever realized – or let myself acknowledge – that you actually have a life in L.A.,” Harry murmurs. “After Zayn, and with you leaving so abruptly, I think I just… I just told myself that it was temporary. That you were gone, but that you weren’t going to stay gone. That even though I let myself be with – _her_ – we’d still find our way back to each other when you came back.

“I guess I ultimately just didn’t want to believe that it was over. Or…that you’d moved on.”

Niall closes his eyes, draws in a breath. “I haven’t,” he whispers. He shouldn’t have said that, he reckons afterwards. Shouldn’t have opened that door. He should just let Harry believe that he’s moved on, let him believe that there isn’t any _real_ chance for them. Life really might be that much simpler if he had. And yet- He can’t. He can’t be with Harry, but he can’t let Harry believe something that isn’t true either – however much it hurts both of them. Not after everything they’ve been through. “I haven’t moved on, Haz. I just- I just can’t be with you.”

“I know,” Harry murmurs. He looks like he’s going to cry; like he’s trying really hard not to.

“We can be friends,” Niall says softly. “I promised Theo that I’d come home as often as I could, plus I will need to come back for a bit for Taylor’s trial, and- We can be friends again.”

“Do you really think that we can go back to just being friends?”

“I like to think so,” Niall admits. He wants his best friend back. “I’d like to try.”

“Uncle Nile?” Theo asks, then, having wrapped his arms around Niall’s leg. Niall leans back to give the toddler some room to crawl up into his lap. Theo surprised him by immediately wrapping his arms around Niall’s torso and digging his face into the fabric of Niall’s shirt. “I already miss you.”

Niall frowns, brushes a hand through his nephew’s hair. “I already miss you too, bud. But I’ll come back, I promise.”

“When?”

“Well- I dunno yet,” Niall says, laughing softly. “I have to sort that out with my boss when I get back.”

Theo pulls away, and looks up at Niall hopefully. “Can you ask if you can come home for my birthday?”

Niall smiles. “Absolutely.”

“And yours?”

“Sure.”

“And Harreh’s?”

Niall blinks, taken aback. “Uh-“

“How about we focus on yours on Niall’s birthdays first, yeah?” Harry suggests, more to distract him than anything.

As if on cue, then, an announcement is made for Niall’s flight number. And his stomach plummets.

Niall smiles, tight-lipped, at Harry, curls his arms underneath Theo’s bum and around his legs to hold him, and pushes himself to his feet. Theo shimmies up and wraps his arms around Niall’s neck. Harry stands then too, just as Bobby comes towards them with two small bags of crisps in his hand from the vending machine across the way.

“Well, that would be _you_ ,” Bobby says, clapping Niall on the shoulder.

Theo tightens his grip, and buries his nose in Niall’s neck. Niall rubs a hand over his back and whispers in his ear to look at him. When Theo pulls back to do so, his cheeks are wet and his eyes are rimmed red and his cheeks are flushed.

“I’ll see you for my birthday, okay?” Niall promises. He knows that he shouldn’t be making promises that he isn’t sure that he can keep but, well- That just means that he has to make sure that he keeps it.

“’kay,” Theo murmurs.

Bobby reaches out, then, and Theo goes surprisingly easily into his grandfather’s arms. Then, Bobby reaches out for Niall; he curls a hand around the back of Niall’s head and brings him into a hug. “Love you, lad.”

“Love you too,” Niall whispers.

Bobby stares at him for a moment, and then his gaze flickers behind him – and Niall knows that he’s looking at Harry. “We’ll wait out in the car.”

Niall tries to will himself to turn around, to face Harry, to give Harry a proper goodbye – the one they both deserve. But it’s like his whole body is frozen.

“You have to go,” Harry whispers.

“I know.”

“Just… Have a safe flight, yeah? And- Text me when you land. I know Bobby will let me know anyway, but I’d just really like for you to-“

“I will,” Niall promises.

Harry draws in a long, shaky breath. “Goodbye, Niall.”

Niall chokes on the word as he turns around, eyes burning with salty, unshed tears – and, just as he suspected, he can’t say it. There is something that he has to say, though; something that he can’t leave unsaid. They’re words that were on the tip of his tongue much earlier this morning; words that he couldn’t say then because he felt it so strongly; words he could barely even think without feeling like he could fall apart.

But they’re words he has to say – now, more than ever. “I love you,” he whimpers- And then his arms are around Harry’s shoulders and his face is in Harry’s neck – and it feels like the only reason he isn’t falling apart at the seams is because Harry’s chest is flush against his and it’s holding him together. “I love you.”

Harry’s arms squeeze him, crush him tight and close. He dips his own face into Niall’s neck and presses his lips to the bruise he’d left behind last night – and Niall welcomes the slight, barely there sting of it.

It’s a reminder of a recent mistake, of his ultimate mistake. It’s a reminder of what once was, of what should never be – of what he can’t have. And yet, it still feels good.

A last call for Niall’s flight comes through the speakers by the gate number, so Niall pulls away. “I’ll see you around,” he whispers, carding a hand through Harry’s hair.

“Yeah,” Harry whispers back.

 

  
The last thing he sees, before the gate door closes, is Harry smiling sadly, his hand held up in a silent, frozen wave.


	18. Epilogue; Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You slept with him, didn’t you?” she asks softly. “Before you left him, you slept with him – and now it’s eating you alive, and it’s killing you to be away from him. Because you’re still in love with him.”
> 
> Niall snorts as he leans back. He grabs at her leg and drapes it back over his thighs, holds it there like it’s an anchor. “Who knew that I wouldn’t actually have to speak in order to talk to you,” he hums.
> 
> Lily rolls her eyes. “So- What are you going to do about it?”
> 
> He shrugs. “Keep pushing until it goes to the back of my mind and stays there for the rest of eternity.”
> 
> “Niall,” she snaps. “Why are you so afraid of him?”
> 
> “It’s not him that I’m afraid of,” he admits.

It’s takes all of one week for him to realize that that sinking feeling, that feeling of dread that seeps into his heart the moment he steps foot on the plane, isn’t just going to go away.

It’s been a busy week despite that though. He’d returned to work on Monday, dove right back into his job, as if he hadn’t nearly been charged with a murder – and by Friday evening, he’s glad that it’s over. He’s tired, he’s cranky, and…he’s lonelier than usual. (The loneliness doesn’t help that feeling of dread.) And, honestly, he just wants to go home, have a couple of pints, find a football game on the telly and go to bed.

And that’s exactly what he sets out to do the minute he walks into his flat. He makes a meal, cracks open a beer, and tries to distract himself with sports. Ultimately, he tries an fails – because he’s still lonely, and he still misses home, and he still can’t stop thinking about Harry and what he’s doing and where he is and how he is.

It’s been one week, and he’s barely talked to Harry since calling to let him know that he’d landed safely in L.A. and, well, he hates how familiar this feeling of adjusting feels. He’d finally been living a semi-normal life here, and now it’s like that’s all been turned upside down and he’s right back to where he started.

His phone is in his hand before he thinks it, and he finds the phone number he’s looking for on instinct. He holds the phone to his ear, then, and listens to it ring four times before it stops and there’s a rustle - and some muffled music in the background, and-

“Hey!”

He smiles when he hears her voice, and it’s like a weight has been lifted off of his chest. “Hey, Lils,” he murmurs.

“You’re alive after all,” she teases.

He hums in response, rests his head back on the sofa. “You busy?”

“I’m out with the girls right now,” she says, and then laughs at something someone says in the background. “I was kinda thinking of leaving soon, though. Are _you_ busy?”

“Not even a little bit,” he finds himself saying.

“I can be there in, like, a half an hour.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean- If you want-“

“Yeah,” Niall murmurs. “Half an hour is good.”

“Cool,” she says softly, and he can hear the smile in her voice.

He hangs up less than a minute later, and places his phone on the cushion next to him, face down. It’s a temporary fix, inviting her over like this, but it’s what he needs right now.

 

There’s a knock at the door 35 minutes later. And, call him lazy, but it’s times like this where he wishes that he’d have just gone ahead and given her a bloody key. He leans forward, reaches out to set his beer bottle on the coffee table in front of him, and then pushes himself to his feet.

His flat is relatively small – at least, it’s small compared most other L.A. flats, mostly because it was all he could afford when he originally moved here, and he hasn’t really had to desire to upgrade. Upgrading feels a little bit too permanent, is the thing, and while he’s not like Harry – hadn’t always thought that these arrangements would be temporary, like Harry – moving into a bigger flat would just be…a lot. And he hasn’t quite been ready for _a lot_.

She’s leaning against the doorframe when he opens the door, head tilted with a pretty smiles. Her long, dark hair is pulled back into a messy bun but a few tendrils have fallen loose to frame her face. “Horan,” she says, smirking softly.

“Collins,” he replies back as he steps aside to let her pass.

She walks past him slowly, drags a hand across his chest on her way by. She drops her clutch on the kitchen counter and then whirls around, lifts her elbows on top of it and leans back. “So, you have two options,” she tells him as he closes the door behind her. “We can either talk about what’s eating away at you and then fuck, or we can fuck and then wait until morning to talk about what’s eating away at you.”

He walks up to her slowly, stops in front of her, brings his hands up to cup her face and then- He kisses, pushes up against her. He’s quick to get a hand up her skirt and then inside her knickers; he rubs at her a few times, and swallows her answering moans.

“Okay,” she breathes, lips brushing against his when he pulls back. “Sure.”

He laughs when he backs away, tugs gently at her arm and pulls her into the living room. He sort of flops back onto the couch and smirks as she crawls on top of him, straddles his waist.

She grinds down on him as she presses their lips together. She reaches blindly for his belt, undoes it quickly, and then pulls him out of his pants. He’s hard and he’s leaking, and he moans when she gives him a tug. He rips away from her with a his and throws his head back. She kisses down his jaw, whispers something about riding him in his ear and he groans as he thrusts up into her hand.

He needs it. He needs some relief. He needs a distraction. And she’s a good distraction. She’s _always_ a good distraction.

He lifts his hips slightly, just enough to reach down into his pocket to pull out his wallet. He’s barely got it in his hand when she plucks it from between his fingers. He watches her as she finds the condom; watches her rip the package open with her hands. She shifts a bit awkwardly, giggles when she almost topples over right before he catches her around the waist. He watches – and moans and hisses – as she rolls the condom down his length; watches her come back over him. He catches her knickers between shaky fingers and pulls them aside, and then watches her sink down onto him.

She tilts her head back, breathes a moan and fists the fabric of his t-shirt in her hands.

He tries to focus on her face. Tries to focus his attention and his thoughts on the lines of her face, on the colour of her eyes, on the exact shape of her lips. And yet, when he closes his eyes – to focus on the warmth bubbling in his tummy – it isn’t Lily that he sees. It’s Harry.

It’s Harry’s short, chocolate-like curls. It’s Harry’s sea green eyes. It’s Harry’s bow-shaped lips, and the way his cheeks flush when he’s all worked up, and the way he looks when he tilts his head back. It’s Harry, and not Lily – and when he comes, far too quickly, it’s Harry’s name that he whimpers into the crook of her neck.

He hopes that she doesn’t hear him, hopes that his voice is muffled enough that she can’t make out the name pressed into her skin that doesn’t belong to her – and yet, somehow, he knows that she does. She hears it, but it doesn’t stop her from following him over the edge. She hears it but she ignores it.

And she continues to ignore it even several moments later as she slides off him and pushes herself to her feet. He groans when she plucks the condom off of him, but welcomes the chaste kiss that follows before she whirls around and makes a beeline for the kitchen. And she continues to ignore it as she asks him if he wants another beer.

And Niall is grateful that she does. His plan had failed. He’d failed in distracting himself, he’d failed in trying to fuck Harry out of his system – and he’s grateful that she chooses not to rub it in. He’d failed, but… At least she doesn’t make him talk about it.

X

As it turns out, not even working is enough to distract him. In fact, it sort of just – gives him more time to think and overthink and dwell and regret and- Think some more. And his boss, Arnold Palmer – The Arnold Palmer, notices this the following Tuesday. Or, rather, he’s noticed it all along but he only decides to pull Niall into his office to talk about it the following Tuesday.

Niall sits in the chair on the other side of Arnold’s desk, folds his right leg over his left and leans back casually. He pretends like he isn’t freaking out a bit on the inside by keeping Arnold up-to-date with the stuff he’s done in the last week and bit; hopes that maybe if he keeps talking, Arnold will forget all about what he pulled Niall in here for in the first place.

“That’s excellent, Niall. Truly,” Arnold says.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now, listen,” the boss says, and Niall feels his stomach drop. “I won’t keep you long. We just haven’t had the chance to catch up since you’ve been back and, well, I’d quite like to. If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah,” Niall nods. “Of course.”

“It’s just- The thing, Niall, is that you seem a bit…distracted lately. And you’ve been this way ever since you got back – and seeing as you did tell me what happened while you were back at home, well- I can’t help but wonder if everything is as okay with you as you say things are.”

Niall blinks. Does he think that Niall is in trouble? “Yeah, no- Everything- Things are good with _that_ , it’s just… There’s just a lot going on up here,” Niall says, pointing to his head.

Arnold leans back in his chair. “What kind of things are going on up there?”

Niall hesitates. Does he really want to get into it with his boss? Does his boss really need to know that he’s still hung up on ex-lover, so much so that he actually legitimately contemplated not returning to L.A. at all? Is his boss even going to care?

“Look,” Arnold says softly. He leans forward, then, and folds his arms across the top of the desk. “You don’t need to tell me because, quite frankly, it’s none of my business, especially when you do still get your job done. I just- I’d like to know if there’s anything that I can do-“

“It’s- It’s nothing that can be done by anyone by myself,” Niall says truthfully.

Arnold sits and looks at him for a moment. It’s like he’s considering Niall, considering his predicament, considering whether or not he should say anything at all. He licks his lips, then, and sits back again. “Have you ever felt like you don’t really fit in here? Not here as in the job, but here as in the city.”

 _Every day_ , Niall thinks. Instead, he says, “From time to time.”

“Do you ever wonder if there’s a reason for that?”

Truthfully? Niall has always just told himself that it’s because he was raised in a small town, one that is the complete opposite of a big city – let alone a city like Los Angeles. (That’s mostly because he’s always refused to consider anything else for fear that it would be right.)

“People always think that running away is the answer,” Arnold says. “They think it’s easier than facing their problems head on. And perhaps sometimes it is, but it’s only ever temporary, isn’t it? Because, eventually, the past catches up to you and then suddenly you’re left to realize that those problems you ran away from never really went anywhere. They were still there, manifesting and lingering and, essentially, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

To an outsider, to anyone who might be listening in – not that anyone is, it would sound like Arnold is not only speaking from experience, but speaking for himself. But it’s more than that. He’s not just talking about himself. He’s talking about Niall. He’s talking _to_ Niall.

“Problems don’t go away unless you face them. Running away – turning your back on them, it’s just…delaying the inevitable. And that’s what makes running away so much harder, in the end. Because just when you think you’ve gotten past whatever the problem is, it reels you back in and you realize that you’re no better off than you were before. And that’s scary, isn’t it? Thinking that you’ve gone and moved past everything only to realize that you haven’t. That whatever life you’ve been living has, essentially, been nothing more than a smoke screen. It’s not necessarily a lie, just…a carefully crafted distraction. A temporary fix.

“The other shoe always drops, Niall. Always.”

Niall raises an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that I need to stop running?”

Arnold shakes his head. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Niall. I just think that you’ve been running for a long time, and that it’s finally beginning to catch up to you. If you keep trying to ignore it, it could destroy you. But if you man up, if you face it head on, then- Perhaps you’ll finally have a shot at being happy.”

His last few words ring through Niall’s head. His stomach lurches a bit at the thought of it.

Arnold doesn’t know a lot about him, is the thing. He knows that Niall suffered a tragedy, knows that Niall had had a few run-ins with the police in the L.A. four years ago, knows that he keeps mostly to himself and that he only keeps a handful of friends in this area. He knows that Niall is good at his job, that he has the potential to be more than just an assistant someday. Essentially, he knows only the bare minimum – and yet here he is, talking to Niall like he knows everything there is to know about all of Niall’s darkest secrets. It’s strange. And yet it’s also weirdly comforting.

X

He sees a couple on the sidewalk while waiting at a red light on his way to the market. His arm is around her shoulders, her hand is curled up in his fingers, and they’re snogging.

He sees a couple in the café on his way to work. They’re waiting for their order, like him, and her arm is hooked around _her_ waist and her chin is resting on _her_ shoulder and they’re whispering and giggling to themselves.

He sees couple after couple after couple and it’s like they’re haunting him. Or, at least the concept of two people being in a relationship is haunting and, well, he hates it. It’s like a punch to the gut, a kick to the head after already being down, a nudge at the back of his knee until he topples over and scrapes his knees on the cement beneath where his feet used to stand. It feels like someone is pulling a rug out from under him every single time.

It’s a constant reminder of what he _could_ have, what he _can’t_ have, and what he _doesn’t_ have. (What he _won’t let_ himself have.)

And, well, of course he sees the couple sitting in a booth in the back of this crowded pub too. They’re both leaned in close, talking quietly, fingertips intertwined on the table between them; he smiles, shy and subtle, when _he_ knocks their ankles together underneath.

It makes Niall’s stomach lurch. Makes his chest ache and his brain hurt. Makes him want to leave – which he would do, honestly, if he hadn’t promised the lads that he’d be here tonight.

It’s his mate Corey’s first big break, in the form of playing his music at some dingy hole-in-the-wall type bar somewhere in L.A. – at least, he thinks they’re still in L.A. They met in Uni a few years, took the same English class, and they’ve been running in the same circle of friends ever since. This gig is a huge deal for him, because it finally means that he has a real shot at making music – a thing his father had never believed in, and thus threw him into business management.

And that’s why Niall can’t leave. Not yet, anyway. Cody would have his head.

Corey has just finished one song – has started to strum the chords to another, and Niall recognizes it as a tune he used to pluck when they were just hanging about in Cody’s dorm room. _On The Run_ , Corey has since called it. The song that speaks so clearly, so loudly to Niall’s soul that it’s almost as if Niall had written it himself.

Between the lyrics and the melody drifting through the bar and the couple across the way, Niall thinks that his chest is going to explode. He can’t leave – yet – but he can take a break, right?

He pushes himself to his feet, ignores Cody’s questioning gaze, and makes a beeline for the back of the pub, which is where he assumes the loos are located. There’s a door at the end of the hall with large block letters that spell out the word MEN, and he nearly throws himself into it in an effort to escape the hallway. The bathroom is empty, thank God, and he finds himself gasping for air as he sort of falls forward to lean against one of three sinks. He takes a few deep breaths in an effort to even himself out, runs a hand through his hair, tugs lightly at the collar of his t-shirt.

It’s never been this hard before – to avoid it, to ignore it- It’s never been this difficult to just not think about it, or about _him_. He knows why it is, though. He’s not stupid. He knows that it’s because he did the one thing he knew that he shouldn’t have. He slept with Harry, knowing that it would cost him whatever sanity and self-restraint that he had left, and now there isn’t any going back – no matter how hard he’s tried.

And he’s tried. He’s tried throwing himself back into work. He’s tried to fuck it out of his system with Lily. He’s been trying to drink away the memories and the feelings. And none of it has worked; nothing is working.

He’s pulling his phone out of his back pocket and dialing Harry’s phone number before he even realizes that he’s doing it. It rings, so Niall puts it up to his ear. It’s late in L.A., which means that it’s really early in Holmes Chapel – which means that there’s a chance that Harry won’t even answer, which is actually probably for the best anyway, but he stands there and he waits either way.

That is, until the door swings open and he sees Corey come in – hair tousled, cheeks flushed, and forehead glistening with sweat – in the reflection of the mirror. He fumbles with the phone, then, to hang it up and stuffs it back into his pocket.

“Sorry,” Corey says. “I can wait.”

“No,” Niall says quickly. “It wasn’t important anyway.”

“You sure?” his friend asks, smirking gently. “You did walk out during my last song for that.”

Niall shakes his head. “That wasn’t- That isn’t why I- It’s not-“ He stutters because he isn’t even entirely sure what he’s trying to say.

Corey laughs, claps him on the shoulder with the hand that he doesn’t run through his hair. “I was kidding. You really think that I haven’t figured it out?”

The brunette cocks an eyebrow.

“Every time I’ve played that song over the last month or two, you go and run off – even if it’s just to another room,” Corey explains. “Pun intended.”

Niall sighs. “It just- Hits a little bit closer to home these days.”

“This is about your boy, Harry, isn’t it?”

Niall looks away, busies himself with washing his hands and then drying them off of a paper towel in a vain attempt to avoid the question.

“So, tell me, Nialler,” Corey hums a moment later. “What exactly about this guy are you running from this time?”

“What do you mean?” Niall asks, brows furrowed in confusion.

Corey shrugs, leans back against the same sink Niall had been leaning on before. “I mean, last time it was obvious once you finally came out with it. You felt guilty because of what happened with your friend Zayn, and what happened with Harry – and running away was easier than staying. Now, all of that has been more or less resolved, you’re still not over him, and yet you’re still running. So- Why are you running this time?”

Niall blinks. His friend raises a good question, but every response that Niall gathers up in his head sounds more like an excuse than an actual explanation. So, instead of answering the question at all, he decides to shift the subject a little bit. “That’s quite the question coming from the bloke who wrote a song about running away from someone’s love.”

Corey rolls his eyes. “That just means that I know where your head is, Horan. Not necessarily that I agree with you.”

Niall looks away, shakes his head. “Can we not talk about this right now? It’s the last thing I want to talk about it, and it’s the last thing you should want to talk about tonight too, so-“

“We worry about you sometimes, the guys and me,” his friend admits. “Especially lately, because you’re twice as grumpy and three times as distant ever since you got back, and-“

“Then pick another day to corner me and force me to talk,” Niall says. “Right now, lets just- Go back before they think I’m trying to seduce you or something.”

“Even if I swung your way, you’re not my type,” Corey teases, which Niall takes to mean that he’s going to drop the previous conversation.

Niall snorts. “You’re not my type either, mate. I was just being nice.”

 

Later, when Niall gets home and he’s drunk and alone – and not even Lily would be awake enough to come over, he finds himself staring at the name, painted red, at the very top of his recent calls list.

Harry had called him back only minutes after Niall had hung up, while he’d been talking to Corey about how he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. He thinks about calling back. It’s well into the decent hours of the morning in Holmes Chapel now, which means that the chance of Harry answering his call is even higher. He could call, and he could speak to Harry – they could catch up, or he could just sit quiet and listen to Harry talk.

Except he doesn’t call. Thinks it’s better that way.

X

The more time he spends away from _home_ , the more he misses it. It’s always been this way, it’s just that it’s more…prevalent now. It’s more present. He’d pushed it to the back of his mind, before – had tucked it deep within the part of his brain that allows him to ignore and/or avoid things his heart doesn’t want to, or can’t bear to, acknowledge. Now, however, it’s as if everything has pushed to the forefront and, no matter how hard he tries and pushes, he can’t make – well, anything go away. Not the heartache, not the loneliness, not the longing – neither for Harry, nor for home; for his father, for his nephew and his brother, for his friends, for the people and the things that make a place feel like home.

Los Angeles has never really felt like home, is the thing. His flat, while nice and decent, has never really felt like a place that felt like a home; his love for his friends has never quite been enough for him to consider them a family. L.A. has never quite been enough for him, but he’s just been really good at pretending otherwise.

He’s been really good at pretending a lot of things.

“So,” Lily hums, plopping herself down on the couch next to him. She folds one bare leg underneath her arse and drapes the other over Niall’s lap. He rolls his head along the back of the sofa, and sort of hate the sudden look of seriousness on her pretty face. She’s almost never serious. She’s always a bit quirky. “I want to bring something up, but you have to promise me a couple of things first.”

Niall lifts one eyebrow curiously.

“You have to promise not to get mad,” she tells him, pausing to wait for his response. He nods, and then continues to stare at her to encourage her to continue. “And you also have to promise me you’ll actually talk about it this time because I’m worried about you-“

“Here we go,” Niall sighs. He knows what that means; knows that it’s only a matter of time before she brings up that one thing they don’t talk about: _Harry_.

“You promised,” Lily murmurs, running a hand through her long, messy hair.

“Fine. Bring it up.”

“It’s been three times now,” she starts, voice soft and just a little bit tentative. It’s like she doesn’t know how to say what he knows she’s trying to say. “You’ve said his name three times, and- I’m not like hurt or anything, I promise, I just… I think you need to acknowledge it. I think you need to talk about it.”

Niall tears his gaze away from hers, stares blankly at the telly across the room.

“Niall,” she whispers. “Talk to me-“

He leans forward, which results in Lily having to pull her leg off of him, and rests his elbows on his knees. “I wish talking about it was as simple as you and Corey make it sound.”

Lily scoffs. “Forget Corey. This is _me_ you’re talking to. If you can’t talk to me, then who can you talk to?”

And, well, Niall hates that he thinks she might be right.

“You slept with him, didn’t you?” she asks softly. “Before you left him, you slept with him – and now it’s eating you alive, and it’s killing you to be away from him. Because you’re still in love with him.”

Niall snorts as he leans back. He grabs at her leg and drapes it back over his thighs, holds it there like it’s an anchor. “Who knew that I wouldn’t actually have to speak in order to talk to you,” he hums.

Lily rolls her eyes. “So- What are you going to do about it?”

He shrugs. “Keep pushing until it goes to the back of my mind and stays there for the rest of eternity.”

“Niall,” she snaps. “Why are you so afraid of him?”

“It’s not _him_ that I’m afraid of,” he admits.

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“Honestly?” he asks, albeit rhetorically, as he turns his head to look at her. She nods. “Before I left- The reason I left, is that I was afraid of the way I felt about him – I was afraid of the fact that my feelings made me do things that weren’t me, or…at least not who I thought was me. There was a time when I never thought that messing around with someone else’s boyfriend was something that I would do, and then I did it – and it wasn’t just someone else, it was one of my best friends. These feelings that I had for him consumed me in the worst way, and the only reason I even realized that was because Zayn had died and I thought it was my fault.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” Lily tells him. “You know that now-“

“I know that it wasn’t entirely or directly my fault,” Niall corrects. “But I still had quite a bit to do with it.”

“Niall-“

“And now, it’s like- I’m not just afraid of those feelings,” Niall continues, cutting her off. “I’m afraid of the fact that it’s been nearly half a decade, and that those feelings haven’t even changed. And if I go back- If I move back there, and I’m with him, then…”

“Then what?” Lily asks. “Niall- The worst has already happened. And it was tragic, and it shouldn’t have happened, and that Taylor Swift bitch is evil right down to her core. It’s the worst that could have happened, and it’s already happened. You made mistakes, Harry made mistakes, and Zayn died, but- I don’t think that means that you’re destined to be miserable, Niall. And, let’s face it, you’re sort of miserable here – and not being with him is a large part of that.”

Niall bites at the inside of his cheek.

“You said that your feelings for him consumed you in the worst way,” Lily says. “And that’s true. They did. But you’re both older now, and you’re wiser, and- What if now it just…consumes you in the best way?”

“What if I don’t deserve that?”

Lily frowns. Her brows furrow and her eyes look sad as she takes Niall’s head in her hands. “Niall, no,” she murmurs. “Everyone deserves a second chance. _You_ deserve a second chance.”

Niall remains silent, stares at her with his own set of sad eyes.

“You just need to be brave enough to take it.”

“Are you calling me a coward?” Niall asks.

She blinks. “No-“

“Because Harry called me a coward, and I think that everything that you just said is everything that he’s been trying to say.”

“I think that he’s just been hurt, and I think that you have too,” Lily tells him softly. “And I do think you that you have a right be scared, I just… I just also think that you deserve to be happy, and I know that being with him will make you happy.”

Niall sighs, long and drawn out. He looks up at the ceiling, closes his eyes, and thinks about Zayn. He thinks about how Trisha had told him that even _Zayn_ wants him to be happy. And then he brings his head back up and he looks at Lily once more; Lily, who looks a bit hopeful. “Do you want to help me write a two weeks’ notice letter worthy of Arnold Palmer?”

Lily squeals as she throws herself into his lap, wraps her arms around his neck. “Yes! And yes, I’ll help you write one- Have you met me? I’ll even help you pack, when the time comes. And, oh- Can I have your flat, fully furnished?”


	19. Epilogue; Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You were so bitter about me trying to move on, meanwhile you’ve been moving on too,” Harry mutters angrily. “You were so mad, and yet you’ve been doing the exact same thing.“
> 
> “That’s not-“
> 
> “You’re not a coward. You’re a hypocrite.”
> 
> The doors can’t open quickly enough by the time the lift reaches the ground floor – but when it does, Harry more or less throws himself out into the lobby. Niall follows him, of course he does, but Harry keeps walking towards the door; he’ll only follow so far, after all. Harry will stop being worth it eventually, right?
> 
> His hand is on the door handle for one of the main doors to the building when Niall calls out to him, and he hates that he hesitates. He hates that he can’t bring himself to pull the door open. He hates how much he hates how desperate Niall sounds. He closes his eyes, licks his lips, and takes a deep breath as turns around. “Isn’t having me see her in nothing but your jumper embarrassing enough? Let me save a bit of my dignity, yeah? I don’t need an explanation-“
> 
> “Well clearly you do,” Niall says, folding his arms over his chest. “Because she isn’t my girlfriend.”
> 
> Harry raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Fiancé, then? Wife?”

Three months and 14 days. That’s exactly how long it’s been since Harry has seen Niall. Three months and 10 days is exactly how long it had been when he’d decided that three months and 10 days had been far too long.

That’s why he’s here; not just in Los Angeles, but also standing on the street corner and looking up at the building in which Niall lives.

Acquiring Niall’s address had been surprising simple. He’d gone to visit Bobby and Theo, had had a whole spiel ready to convince Bobby to give it to him – not that it would have taken that much convincing anyway, and then he’d seen the address written on a piece of paper that Bobby had stuck to the fridge with a magnet and, well- Here he is.

He misses Niall, is the thing. Louis doesn’t believe him – at least, not fully. He thinks that Harry has ulterior motives, which fully include trying to convince Niall to come home with him, and while it’s obviously something that has crossed his mind a few dozen times since he booked his flight four days ago, it’s not the reason why he booked it. He booked it, honestly and simply, because he misses Niall. He’s missed Niall every day for nearly half a decade, had even missed him every day that Niall had been home because it hadn’t really felt like Niall was _home_. He misses Niall, and if surprising him in L.A. with a plan to stay for a couple of days – because he knows that however grumpy Niall might be about it, that he would still let Harry stay with him – is the only way to make the ache in his chest hurt less then, well…

It’s selfish, he knows. And Gemma is right that it’s manipulative, and Liam is probably right that it’s at least a little bit toxic – but he can’t really bring himself to care, because it’s Niall’s fault anyway. It’s Niall that had decided to stay _that night_ , knowing full well that they were both making a mistake. It’s Niall that let him have everything he’s wanted for nearly half a decade and then took it all away all over again. It’s Niall that left him behind – not just once, but twice. It’s Niall that left him and then called him, before hanging up before Harry could answer – and then when he’d called back, Niall had let it go to voicemail. (At the time, he’d reckoned that maybe Niall was drunk, that maybe Niall had realized what time it was for Harry and that he’d call back at a more decent time. Except, well- Niall had never called back.)

So- Why shouldn’t Harry chase him down? Why is it always Niall that makes all the decisions for what they can and can’t do?

He misses Niall, and Niall sort of owes it to him. And if showing up unannounced in Niall’s life is the only way to tell him that, and make him truly understand, well then- So be it.

 

  
He slips into the building just as someone else is leaving, and then goes right for the lift to the left of the main doors. Niall’s room number was also written on the piece of paper on Bobby’s fridge, so he knows which floor number to select once he’s inside.

His stomach feels like it’s lodged itself up in his throat, and his heart is beating like it’s trying to rip through the ribs protecting it. He’s nervous, and he’s sweating – and that’s not just because it’s incredibly hot outside, and he thinks, briefly, that maybe this is a mistake. He thinks that maybe this is exactly the kind of thing he shouldn’t do. And then he thinks that it’s too late either way.

X

He’d lost sight of it, for a while. Family, life, love. In fact, he’d pushed it to the very back of his mind, forced himself to lose sight – because out of sight, out of mind, yeah? He’d been afraid, before. Afraid of life, of death, of love, of going back to his family – back to Harry – and not being able to leave again.

But he’s no longer afraid. He doesn’t fear life anymore, doesn’t even fear himself. He could go back now. He could, because _home_ no longer feels like a foreign, scary place. It simply just…feels like home. And he misses it. He misses being home. He misses his family. He misses his friends. He misses Harry- God, he misses Harry. And he’s no longer afraid to admit that either.

He thinks about calling Harry and telling him. He’s already called Bobby and Theo to tell them that he’ll be back soon and had asked that, apart from telling Greg and Denise, they keep the news a secret until he’s back. But he thinks about calling Harry to tell him because, well- It’s Harry.

A shirt, rolled up into a ball, hits him square in the face, pulling him rather abruptly out of his thoughts. He blinks, catches it in one hand and stares at Lily from across the room. She’s been helping him pack all morning, and in exchange for her help – as if she would have even said no, he’s been helping her practice her lines for her new, upcoming play.

She glares at him, now, from where she’s folding some of Niall’s shirts on the bed. “You’re not even paying attention, are you?”

“Sorry,” Niall murmurs sheepishly. He tosses the shirt back to her, which she promptly re-folds and adds it to one of two piles of folded clothes on the bed. “I was just- Thinking.”

Lily rolls her eyes, despite the smile tugging at her lips and betraying her ‘angry’ expression. A smirk is tugging at her lips, after all, try as she might to hold it back. “I hate you.”

“You’re a terrible actor, love,” he teases.

She squeaks in protest and throws another balled-up shirt at him. “You know, maybe if you actually helped me rehearse like you said that you would, I’d live up to your standards.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Niall says, laughing softly. He crosses the room, ruffles a hand through her hair playfully. “I’m joking. You’re a great actress, which is why you got the lead part this time. It’s also why you already know all of your lines – as well as everyone else’s, which is why you don’t even need me to read anyone else’s. You’re overthinking it, Collins.”

Lily sighs, falls backwards across the bed directly beside the piles of clothes. “I’m so fucking nervous, Niall,” she breathes.

“I know you are,” he hums softly. “But you don’t need to be.”

“This could be my big break,” she murmurs, staring up at the ceiling. “Might even be my _only_ break. I’m so scared I’m going to fuck it up.”

“You won’t,” he tells her. “You’re brilliant, love.”

She pushes herself back up, looks up at him curiously. “Are you still gonna fly out and see me in a few months?”

“Of course,” he smiles. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I might even bring Harry; he likes plays and that.”

“I _would_ like to meet him,” she murmurs, poking a finger into his stomach.

“Only because you want to embarrass me.”

She scoffs. “Noooo,” she drawls.

“Yessss,” he mocks playfully.

“Maybe a little,” she murmurs, shrugging her shoulders. “But mostly I just want to meet the guy who’s managed to keep you so in love with him for over four years without even lifting a finger. I need some lessons.”

Niall rolls his eyes. “You could literally have any guy you want, Lils. You hardly need lessons.”

“Any guy but you,” she whispers.

He blinks, taken aback. Because- What? Since when is she in love with him?

They’ve been friends for a few years now, having met one night in a crowded bar just off campus. She’d gone home with him, and they were both drunk, and she was gone when he woke up the following morning so he’d quickly accepted the fact that it was just a one night stand – which is all he’d wanted, not that he’d been actively looking. He’d bumped into her again that following weekend and, again, she’d wound up going home with him. It had become a _thing_ rather quickly; a thing where neither one of them had to commit because neither one of them were in any position to want to – and it had worked for them. He couldn’t give her his full self, and she’d been far too committed to acting to be able to commit to any sort of real relationship. They were friends who would shag from time to time, and that was it. They weren’t in love. Except, apparently one of them was…

“It’s not that deep,” she says, then, flippantly. “It’s fine. It’s just- An observation, mostly.”

Niall swallows around the lump in his throat and licks his lips. “Lily-“

As if on cue, there’s a knock at the front door on the other side of the flat. Niall used to think it weird, every time he heard a knock, but a few of his neighbours are rather forgetful and, well, he always had a fully stocked refrigerator.

“I’ll get it,” she says, pushing herself quickly to her feet. (Niall gets the distinct impression that she might just need to get away from him.) “And- It’s not a big deal, I promise. In fact, I get it. Believe me.”

+

There’s a rustling sound on the other side of the door – and that’s when he hears it: a girl’s voice, muffled only by the walls standing between them. He doesn’t even know what she says because he stopped listening, but he hears her and his stomach drops. His heartbeat quickens, which he hadn’t thought possible, and suddenly his knees feel a bit weak and shaky.

The door swings open quickly, and- Harry wants to throw up because she’s beautiful. She’s stunning. She’s all long, dark hair and hazel eyes and perfect eyebrows and long, bare legs and Niall’s old school jumper and- Harry feels sick, thinks he might actually pass out. Thinks he should probably just…leave.

She looks confused, for a moment. Looks like she’s trying to place him, as she grips the door with both hands. Her eyes widen as it dawns on her who he must be – or at least that’s what Harry assumes, and a smile tugs at her lips. “You’re Harry,” she tells him.

And, somehow, that makes him feel even worse. She knows who he is, but he doesn’t have a single clue who she is. Who is she? What is she doing in Niall’s flat? Answering Niall’s door? In Niall’s old jumper and without trousers?

Niall comes around a corner, then. Harry can see him in a background, assumes that he’s coming from a hallway of some sort with his head down. “Babe, who-“ He pauses when he looks up, stares at Harry in awe.

Harry spins on both heels and makes to leave. He feels numb. Feels like the whole world is spinning, though he’s standing still – or, perhaps he’s just dizzy and he’s the one who’s spinning. Not that it matters, because the only thing that matters is getting out of his building – out of this bloody city – as soon as possible.

He’s only vaguely aware of Niall’s voice calling out to him. The closer he gets to the lift, the closer Niall’s voice seems to get. It’s his luck that the lift doors open right before he reaches them, and he squeezes into it just as a middle-aged man steps out of it. It’s also his luck, however, that the doors stay open just long enough for Niall to slip inside with him.

“Get out,” he finds himself saying, despite the fact that the lift is already moving.

Niall blinks. “What- What are you doing here?”

“Nothing anymore,” Harry mutters, staring at the wall in front of him. “Get out.”

“Harry-“

Harry whirls around, then. His cheeks feel hot, his stomach is queasy, and his eyes are burning with tears he refuses to set free. (He would care about how concerned Niall looks as he looks back, if he weren’t already so angry.) “Who is she?”

“Who- Lily?” Niall asks, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Harry demands.

“What?”

“Is she why you couldn’t wait to get back here?” he presses. “You had her waiting for you all that time?”

Niall shakes his head. “Harry-“

“You were so bitter about _me_ trying to move on, meanwhile you’ve been moving on too,” Harry mutters angrily. “You were so mad, and yet you’ve been doing the exact same thing.“

“That’s not-“

“You’re not a coward. You’re a hypocrite.”

The doors can’t open quickly enough by the time the lift reaches the ground floor – but when it does, Harry more or less throws himself out into the lobby. Niall follows him, of course he does, but Harry keeps walking towards the door; he’ll only follow so far, after all. Harry will stop being worth it eventually, right?

His hand is on the door handle for one of the main doors to the building when Niall calls out to him, and he hates that he hesitates. He hates that he can’t bring himself to pull the door open. He hates how much he hates how desperate Niall sounds. He closes his eyes, licks his lips, and takes a deep breath as turns around. “Isn’t having me see her in nothing but your jumper embarrassing enough? Let me save a bit of my dignity, yeah? I don’t need an explanation-“

“Well clearly you do,” Niall says, folding his arms over his chest. “Because she isn’t my girlfriend.”

Harry raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Fiancé, then? _Wife_?”

“Friend,” Niall tells him.

Harry snorts. “She’s a little more than just your friend, Niall.”

Niall sighs. “Can you just- Can we go back upstairs and talk about this?”

“No,” Harry mutters. He’s about to turn around entirely when Niall grabs his arm, firmly albeit gently.

“Just- I can explain,” Niall whispers. “Please come back upstairs and let me explain.”

Harry follows him. The ride back upstairs is all kinds of loud silence. It’s the single most awkward life experience of his life so far. And he hates it. Even more so, however, he hates that he’ll have to face _her_ again and, honestly- He’s kind of rather scratch his eyes out.

She’s fully dressed when they get back to Niall’s flat – and in what Harry assumes is her own clothes, if the floral romper draped over her petite body is anything to go by. (Harry really hates how pretty she is.)

“So- I’m gonna go,” she announces, just before Niall can close the door.

Niall, for his part, blinks. “Oh. Uh-Yeah,” he mutters.

“Your clothes are all packed. The only thing left for you to do is pack up whatever’s left in the pantry in the kitchen, if you want it.”

“Okay,” Niall nods. “Um- Thanks, Lils,” he says, holding the door open wide for her. “I’ll text you later.”

She nods, smiles with tight lips, and then turns slightly to look at Harry – although Harry finds himself looking everywhere but at her. “I hope next time we meet it’s under better circumstances,” she tells him softly.

Harry nods in response because it’s all he can do.

It’s as Niall sees her off down the hallway that Harry realizes exactly how empty Niall’s flat is, save for the furniture. He notes the boxes littered across the living room floor, the empty hooks on the walls where he presumes pictures used to hang. His stomach sinks.

“So,” Niall starts, having closed the door and started to walk towards him as he scratches the back of his neck. “That was Lily.”

“Are you moving in with her, or are you both moving somewhere else?”

“I’m moving back home, actually.”

Harry blinks, entirely taken aback; confused. “What?”

The right corner of Niall’s mouth lifts up into a small, crooked smile. “I’m coming home, Harry.”

It feels like his heart is in his throat, like his stomach is going to fall out of his butt. “You… What are you talking about?”

“I quit my job two weeks ago, been in the midst of sorting things out and packing-“

“Niall,” Harry breathes. “Why? What- What the hell is going on?”

“If you’d let me explain, you’d know.”

“Explain _what_?”

“That that was Lily,” Niall says, his voice soft. He sounds fond, too, and his tone tugs at Harry’s heartstrings, despite the jealousy simmering in his veins. He sits on the edge of the arm of the sofa, crosses his arms over his chest, looks Harry directly in the eye. “That I met her a few years ago and that we hooked up because I was trying to stop thinking about you and about Zayn all the damn time. That we’ve slept together on and off since then, just like- Friends, with the benefits of having someone to shag if we’re in the mood – or, likewise, not in a good mood. That she’s heard me cry and rant about you, and about Zayn, enough times to know everything about me. That she’s the one who convinced me to give things with you another chance…”

Harry feels like he might throw up. It’s a lot to take in, in such a short amount of time. And he’s not entirely sure how he feels about it. His brow furrows in confusion, licks his dry lips. “W-Why?”

“Because she’s a good person, and good friend – and because the last three times we’ve shagged I said _your_ name,” Niall murmurs, smiling awkwardly. “She just- She knows me, and she knows me in regards to you, and… She sort of, I dunno- I was sort of teetering on the edge for weeks because all I wanted to do was go home, and she was the one who gave me the final nudge to make the decision to.”

“The _final_ nudge?”

Niall shrugs. “A couple of other people I know have also had a few things to say. I think they’re all just trying to get rid of me.”

Harry knows it’s supposed to be a joke – that it’s supposed to be funny, and it might be funny and maybe if circumstances were different he’d have laughed, it’s just- Well, it’s just that he doesn’t quite have it in him to laugh about it yet. “So… You’re coming home?”

Niall nods. “I have a flight booked for tomorrow afternoon.”

Harry blinks, makes a mental note that he’ll have to move his own flight up.

“You gonna tell me what _you’re_ doing here now?” Niall asks, then. He cocks his head to the side, as though he’s curious.

“I, uh,” Harry stutters, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat. “I just missed you.”

“Haz,” Niall says, knowingly, looking at him like he knows.

“You called,” he murmurs. “Then you never called back, and I didn’t think it was fair. And I missed you.”

“I called you because I missed you, couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Niall admits. “I hung up because something came up, and I didn’t call you back because…I didn’t think it would be fair. Not after I left.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming back?” Harry finds himself asking.

“Thought it would be better in person,” Niall whispers, pushing himself away from the edge of the sofa. “Thought you wouldn’t really believe it until you saw it anyway, so- I wanted to tell you in person.”

Harry’s brow furrows – because he still isn’t entirely sure that he believes it.

And Niall must know it, because he closes the gap between them quickly. He brings his hands up towards Harry’s face, where they hesitate for a fraction of a minute before they cup his face. He leans in, then, presses their foreheads together. It’s when he whispers Harry’s name, that Harry realizes that he’d closed his eyes somewhere along the way, and when he opens his eyes, blue – and warmth and love – is all that he sees. And it’s all that he wants to see, honestly.

“I’m coming _home_ , Harry,” he whispers, pressing their lips together in the quickest of kisses. It’s like he’s sealing the deal. Like he’s pressing a promise into Harry’s lips. “If you’ll have me,” he adds softly.

For the briefest of moments, Harry wishes that he could play hard to get. He wishes that he could make Niall work for it, at least a little bit. But, well- He’s Harry, and it’s Niall – and they’ve both been through far too much already. And, honestly, he doesn’t fancy playing hard to get all that much anyway because where’s the fun in that? What good would it do?

“Yes,” Harry murmurs, fingers grasping at the fabric of Niall’s shirt. “I’ll have you.”

Niall breathes a sigh of what can only be relief before he smiles, soft and beautiful. And then he’s kissing him again, only this time it lasts longer and it feels stronger. His lips are soft, and his tongue tastes sweet – but his kiss is sweeter.

Harry kisses back eagerly. He relishes in the little tingles that work their way up and down his spine, savours the way every fiber of his being along with the butterflies in his stomach come to life – just in case. Just in case this is all just a dream. Just in case Niall changes his mind.

“Still have your bed?” he finds himself asking as he pulls away, panting only slightly.

Niall smirks, runs a hand through Harry’s hair. “Yes.”

Harry hums, plucks another kiss from Niall’s lips. “I think we owe it to ourselves to celebrate, don’t you?”

X

“Hey,” Niall murmurs, poking a long index finger into Harry’s side as he walks up the side of the bed. “Get up.”

“No,” Harry mutters, his voice muffled by the pillow he’s got his mouth pressed into.

Niall smiles, runs a hand over the back of Harry’s head, through his hair. “Get up.”

Harry huffs as he twists around to look at him. “Why?”

“I want to take you somewhere,” Niall tells him, tossing him a shirt. “C’mon.”

“You could take me _here_ ,” Harry murmurs, a sly smirk tugging at his lips.

Niall rolls his eyes, despite the smile he can feel growing on his own lips. “I want to show you something,” he explains. “You came to L.A., Haz. And I want to show you the best place in L.A.”

Harry rolls over, then. Pushes himself up onto his elbows and cocks his head to the side. “Let me guess. The clubs?”

“No.”

“Sunset strip?”

“No, just- I know you want to fuck all over the flat so that you can try to erase whatever image you have of Lily and me out of your head, but I promise you this will be better.”

“I doubt that,” Harry mutters, despite kicking his feet over the side of the bed.

“Then, try me,” Niall says challengingly. “Come with me.”

X

Niall knows the minute they make it that he was right. He can practically see the way it takes Harry’s breath away.

He remembers his own experience like it was yesterday; remembers the way the view over the HOLLYWOOD sign, overlooking the city of Los Angeles, at a sunset that had stolen his breath, remembers the way it had made him feel like he was okay even if the feeling had only lasted for the length of time that he’d stood here, gazing down upon this brand new world. That’s why he’d wanted Harry to see it. It’s why he’d wanted to experience it one last time, with Harry. Because it’s okay now. They’re both okay now.

“You’re right,” Harry tells him, a moment later. “This is better.”

Niall hums, reaches for Harry’s hand and intertwines their fingers. Harry’s palm is a bit sweaty and a little bit hot, but their hands fit together perfectly anyway.

“It’s breathtaking,” Harry whispers.

“Yeah,” Niall murmurs, gaze locked on the profile of Harry’s face; on the colour of his skin under the darkening sky, on the way his eye shines in the light, on the curves his nose and his cheeks and his lips. “It is, isn’t it?”

Harry turns his head to look at him, smiles softly when he finds that Niall is already looking at him. He squeezes Niall’s fingers with his own, strokes his thumbs over Niall’s.

“I used to come here a lot,” Niall tells him. “It- Weirdly enough, because it’s basically the complete opposite, it reminds me of the viaduct.”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I get it.”

He thinks he’s going to miss it, this view. This place. This city. But not half as much as he’s missed home the last four years. There’s something comforting in that.

Harry pulls his phone out of his pocket with his free hand, opens the camera, and raises it.

Niall rolls his eyes, albeit fondly. “You’re so lame.”

Harry smirks. “I’m a tourist. Also- _You’re_ the one that brought me here.”

Niall hums, watches Harry take one – _two_ pictures. It’s just like every other picture that anyone else has taken from behind the HOLLYWOOD sign with a miraculous view of L.A. spread out for miles ahead of it. And, yet-

“Besides,” Harry murmurs, his voice breaking apart Niall’s thoughts. “This isn’t just any picture. It’s…special.”

As if on cue, then – before Niall has the chance to agree, Niall’s phone goes off from inside his pocket. Harry, for his part, minds his own business and busies himself with taking more pictures – the photographer coming out in him – whilst giving Niall the space to check his phone.

It’s Corey, asking him to meet him and a few of the boys at the bar for some farewell pints. A few hours ago, Niall would have gone without hesitation because they’re his friends and it’s going to be a long while since he sees them again. Now, though- Harry’s here now and, well, he’s not quite sure that dragging Harry along would be…appropriate.

“What?”

Niall’s gaze snaps up, follows Harry’s voice towards where the man in question is stood, phone lifted as if he’d just taken a picture of him. He’d smirk at the thought of Harry’s old habit falling quickly into place, if he weren’t confused.

Harry shrugs, lowers his phone. “You just- You look conflicted. What is it?”

“It was one of my mates, Corey, wondering if I want to grab a few pints tonight with the lads.”

“Do you?”

Niall shrugs. “That’s why I’m conflicted.”

Harry’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why?”

“I don’t want you to feel obligated-“

“I wouldn’t feel obligated,” Harry tells him softly. “And, actually- I’d like to meet your friends.”

Niall blinks, taken aback. “Really?”

Harry smiles as he tucks his phone back into the back pocket of his jeans, licks his lips as he walks closer to where Niall is standing. “Yeah, really. I…I was in denial that you actually had a life here.” He pauses, sighs as he curls each index finger on both hands through the front loops on Niall’s jeans and closes the gap. “You’ve shown me a small portion, and I’d never know everything or everyone, but- I’d like to meet the people close enough to you that they’d like to see you before you leave them.”

“Alright,” Niall murmurs, cocking his head slightly. “Yeah. We’ll go.”

X

The last thing Niall expects when they walk into the bar is the roar of his own name that follows. It sort of startles him and it certainly startles Harry, who stumbles into his shoulder when Niall comes to an abrupt halt in the doorway.

Hung above the bar counter, is a long banner that reads _Farewell, Horan_. Beneath it, stands his small group of outcasts; Corey, Cody, Justin, Conor, and Lily.

The boys rush forward first. They hug him, pat him on the back, and take it upon themselves to introduce themselves to Harry. Conor pushes a pint into his hand. The whirlwind that is his L.A. crew – at least, that’s what they call themselves – is quick to pick Harry up, twirl him around and then steal him away, and Harry doesn’t seem to mind.

Niall’s gaze settles, then, on where Lily is sitting perched on her favourite bar stool, some sort of pink cocktail in her hand. He rolls his eyes dramatically as he strolls towards her. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

She grins as she shrugs her shoulders.

He smiles softly as he curls an arm around her shoulders. “You’re a fuckin’ sneak. Where did you find the time?”

“Well,” she smirks, “there’s this new app that lets you have group discussions, which makes planning this kind of thing _super_ easy.”

Niall laughs, shakes his head as he drops onto the bar stool beside her. He stares at her for a moment, drinks her in as he takes a long sip of his beer. She’s fantastic, is what she is. And his only regret in leaving is that he knows – can see it within the depths of her eyes – that her heart is a little bit broken. “Lils, I-“

“No,” she tells him, shaking her head. She reaches across the space between them, presses a finger to his lips. “None of that. You’re fine, _I’m_ fine, so lets just- Lets just leave it at that, okay? I put a lot of time and effort into talking with these idiots to throw this celebration, so lets just celebrate.”

And, well- Who is Niall to deny her _that_?

X

The thing about Niall’s friends is that Harry actually really likes them. They’re all a bit dorky and cool and, well, he can tell just by the way they interact with and talk about and treat Niall that they really, truly care about him. And he likes that about them. He likes knowing that despite everything that Niall has been through, despite everything he’s ever felt – anger, guilt, confusion, self-loathing, he’s had this small group of lads to help carry him through it, to distract him, to care about him and look out for him.

Lily is the only one he doesn’t speak to in his quest to meet all of Niall’s friends. That, however, doesn’t last long – and, in hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have expected it to. It’s innocent enough, the way she bumps into him as they’re both coming out of their respective loos at the back of the pub, but it’s after he whispers an apology and as he turns to walk away that she curls a hand around his bicep to stop him.

“Can we- Can I talk to you?” she asks softly, a soft, tentative smile tugging at her lips. “About Niall?”

He wants to say no, really. Instead, though, he nods and he watches silently as she lowers her hand, observes as she pushes both of her hands, then, into the back pockets of her faded, ripped skinny jeans.

“I know that you’ve been avoiding me,” she says softly. “And that’s okay, because I know that it’s because you know about my relationship with him. And I know how uncomfortable it makes you, believe me. But here’s the thing, Harry- I care about him. I genuinely care about him. I know that going back home is what he needs, and I know that being with _you_ is what he needs more than anything, but- All he has to do is call me and say that he thinks that you’re being unfaithful to him and I will be on the next flight there. You have one shot with him, one shot to do it right.

“I love him, but he loves you. He loves you with his entire being, Harry. Everything that he is loves _you_ and that’s okay with me, but if you ever hurt him – if you _ever_ stop deserving him, if you ever fall back into old habits, I will be there and I will chop your dick off and then I’ll bring him as far away from you as he can get.”

Harry finds himself staring at her, considering her whilst she looks back. Her eyes are kind, despite the promise she’s just made him. And, well, he certainly believes her. He can see it. He can see how much she cares about him, genuinely. It’s not about her being in love with him, although she so clearly is; it’s literally just because she loves him, from one person to another.

“He trusts you,” she continues. “And I trust his judgement of you, despite your past mistakes, because you’ve both made mistakes- But I promise you, Harry Styles, that if you ever break his trust or his heart – if you ever break _him_ , I won’t hesitate to get him away from you.”

“I’ll never hurt him,” Harry tells her. “I’d never do that to him.”

“You’ve done it before,” she points out – as if he hasn’t thought about it every single day for the last four years. As if it’s not something he’s worried about before.

“I was a stupid kid before,” he says. “And I was- I was confused. I had feelings for him that I didn’t know what to do with, or how to define, and- Honestly, I reckon I’ve _always_ been a bit in love with Niall – even when I started dating Zayn, and… I was stupid, and I fucked up with Zayn, but I won’t fuck this up. I won’t hurt him.”

“Good,” she whispers. She turns to leave, then, but he calls out to her.

“Why haven’t you fought for him?” he asks curiously.

Lily shrugs rather sadly. “It’s always been you, for him. I knew it from the very beginning. I was ready for if it would change, but I knew that the likelihood of it changing was slim. I- I came to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t ever love me the way that he loves you a long time ago. There was no use fighting it then, and there’s no use fighting it now. It just is what it is. And it’s that he’s in love with you.

“I can’t change that any more than he can, you know? So, I mean, really- There’s nothing much to fight for.”

Harry finds himself staring at her, still. She’s sort of…profound about it. She’s realistic. And, ultimately, she’s selfless. Unlike him, considering. And, well, he reckons he admires that; admires her.

As if on cue, then, someone comes around the corner and- It’s Niall.

Niall, who’s all flushed cheeks, and pink ears, and glassy eyes – probably from laughing too hard, and a thin layer of sweat glistening in the dim lighting in the hallway. He grins when he sees Harry, and then falters when he sees Lily standing across from him. He blinks, looks between them as if he’s considering whether or not he needs to actually stand between them too. “Is…everything okay?”

“Everything’s great,” Lily says, smiling wide. “Things are good. I was actually just gonna go get a shot or two- Would you gentlemen care to join?”

Niall nods, pushes both of his hands into the front pockets on his trousers. “Yeah, we’ll be right there.”

She continues to smile as she slips away from them, squeezing gently at Niall’s shoulder on her way by, nothing more than a little bit of reassurance.

Harry watches her go, briefly, before his gaze settles back on Niall. Niall, who looks curious – as well as curiously confused. “What?”

Niall raises an eyebrow. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Harry says with a nod of his head. “She’s actually really nice. And she cares about you.”

“I was gonna tell you,” Niall says, then, because he knows. “I was just- Mildly afraid that it would make you feel worse about her, and-“

“I don’t,” Harry assures him.

A grin tugs at the corners of Niall’s mouth until his lips break apart into the most beautiful of smiles. “Good,” he murmurs, stepping in closer. His hands finds Harry’s hips, fingers digging gently but intentionally into the flesh that resides there, and presses in until there’s but a centimeter between their lips. “You wanna get out of here?”

“Thought we were doing shots,” Harry whispers back. “Shots, shots, shots.”

Niall shrugs. “Could do some shots and then get out of here.”

“Are you even allowed to leave yet?”

“’s my party, isn’t it? Means I get to call the- Shots.”

Harry smirks. “Pun intended?”

Niall hums as he closes the gap between them. Harry doesn’t really like Guinness or whiskey but he doesn’t mind the taste of it on Niall’s tongue, oddly enough.

Harry raises an eyebrow when they part, cocks his head to the side. “Thought there were better things to do than shag all over your flat,” he teases.

“That was _then_ ,” Niall breathes. “I also just- I want to spend some time with _you_ , yeah?”

Harry ducks his head to hide a smile. “ _They_ won’t be mad that you’re leaving early?”

Niall scoffs with a shrug of his shoulders. “They’ll hardly even notice at this point.”

He leads them back towards the table the lads had picked out earlier, grabs the jacket he’d brought (but has had yet to wear) off of the back of one of the chairs, whilst Harry hangs back behind him. They aren’t his friends, after all; he’s not the one that needs room to say goodbye.

“So, uh- Harry and I are gonna…” Niall trails off and he motions, with a thumb hooked over his shoulder, towards the door.

Corey smirks behind his pint. “You guys gonna _shag_? That’s the word you use for sex, right?”

Harry can feel his cheeks burning up as Niall rolls his eyes. He laughs a moment later when Lily slaps him over the back of the head. Niall laughs too, and shakes his head with a fond smile – and Harry’s stomach flips over in response.

“Well,” Conor drawls, pushing himself to his feet. “It’s been great knowing you, _friend_.” He sticks a hand out between them, which Niall immediately slaps away in favour of pulling him into a hug by the shoulders.

Harry keeps hanging back whilst everyone says their goodbyes. There’s laughter and there are smiles and jokes and Cody tells Niall not to be a stranger – and it seems a bit foreign how happy the exchanges are; it’s an incredibly vast contrast from the last time Harry and Niall had said goodbye. He finds himself holding his breath, on instinct more than anything, when Niall pulls Lily into a hug. He hears Niall thank her, for _everything_ , hears him call her the best person he could have ever asked for, hears him apologize – and that’s when he tunes himself out, because it feels far too intimate for _him_. He tunes back in a moment later, though, when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

It’s Corey. “It was nice to meet you, bro,” he says, holding a hand out to shake.

Harry takes it.

“Take care of him.”

“I will,” Harry nods, his voice barely audible around the lump in his throat.

X

Niall’s fumbling, trying to get Harry’s trousers undone just enough that he can sneak his hand down the front of Harry’s pants, as they stumble through Niall’s flat towards the lonely sofa in the living room. Harry feels the arm of the couch against the backs of his thighs – and that’s when he can’t take it anymore, the ball of unspoken-about anxiety lingering within the depths of his chest. It’s been there since the minute they left the bar; a constant reminder.

“Wait- Stop- Niall,” Harry murmurs, his own hands coming up to steady Niall’s.

“What?” Niall whispers, his breath fanning across Harry’s face. “You too jet lagged?”

Harry blinks. “I-“

“Because I don’t mind doing all the work this time,” Niall whispers, nipping at Harry’s jaw with his teeth.

“No, I just- I just want to talk about something first.”

Niall pulls back, raises an eyebrow. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Yeah, sure. Go for it.”

Harry licks his lips, takes a deep breath. “I just need to know if you’re sure about this.”

“About what?” Niall asks, brows furrowing in confusion. “About shagging? Of course I’m-“

“About me,” Harry whispers. “About coming home. About- All of it.”

Niall somehow looks even more confused as he stands back all the way. He looks Harry up and down, folds his arms over his chest. “What are you- Of course I’m sure, Harry. What- Where is this coming from?”

Harry looks away, trains his gaze on the boxes sitting in the corner of the room.

“Is this about Lily?”

His gaze snaps up at the mention of her name; he can’t help it. Nor can he help the confirmation that must be written all over his face if Niall’s sigh is anything to go by.

“Haz,” Niall whispers. “It’s nothing-“

“It’s not nothing,” Harry finds himself saying. “Not for her. And- You might not be in love with her, but it can’t just be nothing for you either.”

“Harry-“

“She’s actually kind of perfect for you,” he continues, his voice but a whisper. “And she’s not crazy, or murderous, and-“

“Are you seriously trying to convince me to stay?” Niall wonders incredulously, his brows furrowed.

Harry blinks, taken aback. “No, I just-“

“Then what are you saying, Harry?”

Harry sighs, and then bites at his bottom lip. It feels like his heart is sitting up in his throat, like his stomach is about to fall out of his body through his arse. “I just can’t help but wonder if coming home is something you think you want because of how messed up things have been – and suddenly…aren’t,” he explains. He’s been thinking about it since they left the bar. Been thinking about how Niall really has had this whole, entire life here – that it’s been normal and good, that he has friends here and a girl that loves him enough to let him go-

Niall shakes his head as if in disbelief, pinches the bridge of his nose. “You- A few months ago you would have kidnapped me to keep me from getting on the plane back here if I’d let you, and now you want me to stay-“

“I _don’t_ want you to stay here,” Harry says. “Having you come back to England with me is the best way that this trip could have turned out. I just- I wasn’t expecting all of this.”

“All of _what_ , Harry?” Niall demands. He sounds frustrated, and borderline exhausted.

“How great your friends are, for one,” Harry explains. “And-“

“Lily.”

“She loves you,” Harry tells him, as if he doesn’t already know. “She’s not just in love with you, but she _loves_ you – so much that she’s encouraging you to be with _me_. She’s good to you, Ni. And she’s good _for_ you, and…” He trails off; can’t make his mouth form the words his brain wants it to say.

“And- What?” Niall whispers. “You think _you’re_ not?”

Harry shrugs because it’s all he can do.

“She _is_ good to me,” Niall agrees. “And she’s definitely good _for_ me. And she’s not crazy, or murderous. She’s- She’s kind of perfect. But… She’s not you, Haz,” he whispers. And then he’s stepping forward, and he’s getting into Harry’s space, cupping Harry’s face between his hands. “She’s great, and she’s safe – but she’s not you, and this place isn’t home. She isn’t home.

“I’ve been running – from you, from home – for far too long. And I’m tired of it. It’s too exhausting. I want to come home, and I want to…move on. And I can’t move on if I keep running.”

“What if I hurt you?” Harry asks. He finds himself holding his breath in anticipation the second the question leaves his mouth. His chest feels tight, and his hands are sweating – and he’s scared. He’s so fucking scared.

Niall shakes his head, presses his forehead against Harry’s. “You won’t.”

“But what if I do?”

He smiles as he shakes his head. “If there was any part of me that thought that you would, I wouldn’t be doing this,” he says. “So, unless there’s some reason that _you_ don’t want to do this, then-“

“No, I do,” Harry says quickly, looping his fingers in the loops on Niall’s jeans. “Of course I do.”

Niall grins, and fits his lips against Harry’s softly. He hums, a moment later, when he pulls back. “Then can I _please_ give you a blowie before you pass out on me?”

Harry smirks. His heart skips a beat and his dick twitches within the strict confines of his trousers as he watches Niall sink to his knees. He holds Niall’s gaze the whole time, and he’s pretty sure that he’s never been more in love.

X

_He sees a figure in the distance as he drives in, but it isn’t until he’s able to approach on foot that he realizes who it is. It’s Zayn._

_It’s Zayn, looking alive and well, and yet no older than the age of 17. It’s Zayn, standing in front of his own tombstone with his hands in the pockets of a black leather jacket and an unlit cigarette tucked behind his hear. It’s Zayn and Niall isn’t sure if he should run, or hug him, or cry – or all of the above._

_“Zayn,” Niall whispers. His hands are shaking when he reaches out to touch him, but his hand goes right through – and he thinks, briefly, that it’s sort of funny that Zayn’s actual ghost is here, when his virtual ghost has been haunting Niall, unseen and unheard, for years. He thinks that he should be scared, or at least a little bit freaked out. And yet it feels oddly…comfortable to see him now. In fact, he feels a bit relieved._

_Zayn tosses a look over his shoulder and smiles. “Hey, Nialler.”_

_And, God, Niall has missed his smile. It tugs at his heartstrings. “Zayn, what- What are you doing here?”_

_Zayn shrugs. “I mean- It is_ my _grave, mate.”_

_Niall bites at his bottom lip, feels a bit like he might pass out. He watches, in silence, with his mind whirring and what feels like his heart wedged up in his throat, as Zayn plucks the cigarette from behind his ear. Watches as Zayn places it between his lips. Watches him pull a lighter out of his jacket pocket before lighting it and dragging a breath into his lungs at the same time. It feels so- Zayn. It feels like Zayn._

_“Here,” Zayn mutters, holding the cigarette out for Niall to take. “Looks like you could use something to calm down a bit. Have a seat with me.”_

_Niall takes the cigarette and then does as he’s told. He sits on the ground next to where Zayn is sitting in the grass, facing his own headstone. And then he takes a drag of the cigarette. It burns, and he sputters and he chokes – and then he takes one more drag before he hands it back to Zayn._

_“I heard that you’re moving back home.”_

_Niall blinks. “Yeah.” He whispers. “Yeah, I am.”_

_Zayn smirks. “’s about time, mate.”_

_Niall turns his head to look at him, brows furrowed in confusion._

_“I’m just saying- It’s been long enough, don’t you think?”_

_“Zayn,” Niall breathes, his stomach flipping over._

_The boy in question presses a hand against Niall’s shoulder as he leans forward. “You need to lighten up.”_

_“I just- I don’t understand,” Niall murmurs. “How- How are you okay with this? How could you have ever forgiven me?”_

_Zayn shrugs. “I didn’t have any intention to forgive you when I left your house that night, Niall. There was no way in hell that I was going to forgive either of you – ever.”_

_“Then- What changed?”_

_“Being in a coma, for one,” Zayn drawls. “Look, Niall- I’m dead, yeah? And even if I weren’t dead, we wouldn’t be friends. But there’s no use in being angry for the rest of my undead life. Besides, forgiving you – both of you – doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten, it just means that I think you deserve a decent chance at living a decent life.”_

_Niall swallows hard around the lump in his throat._

_“You need to forgive yourself too, Niall,” Zayn whispers. “You both do. And I reckon that the fact that you’re moving back home means that you’re almost there.”_

_Niall shrugs. “Maybe. The jury’s still out on that one.”_

_“Just- Try, yeah? Try to get Harry to forgive himself too.”_

_“You’re something else, Zee,” Niall says softly. Tears are burning his eyes even as he smiles. Zayn shrugs in response, and Niall wants nothing more than to hug him. Wants to tell him that he loves him. That he misses him, more than anything else._

_“Can you do me a favour?” Zayn asks, then. His voice is barely louder than the quietest of whispers as he stares at the stone before him._

_Niall nods. “Anything.”_

_“When you go home, can you- Can you keep an eye on me mum and sisters? I know they’re good, you know, but I just-“_

_“I will,” Niall promises._

_“Thank you.”_

_And that’s it. Time goes on, in this dream of Niall’s, during which they both sit in an oddly comfortable silence. It goes on, and on, but neither one of them speak to each other._

_And then suddenly he’s gone. And Niall feels empty for a moment, until everything feels okay._

X

Niall wakes up alone.

The bed is empty, as is the room apart from the furniture and, well, him. Harry’s side, where he’d slept, is cold beneath the sheet. And his clothes are gone from where he’d let Niall strip him in the middle of the floor. The only trace of him left is the smell of sex; he makes a brief mental note to get them washed before he leaves for the airport.

He’s alone and his heart is in his throat and his stomach flips over like he’s going to be sick and- And then he hears the front door open and close – and he hears someone rustling around in the front hall. He thinks it’s probably Harry, because Harry wouldn’t _really_ leave him after everything they’ve been through, but it could be Lily, he supposes, if Harry had had second thoughts upon waking up this morning and had somehow contacted her to come to Niall’s rescue, or something.

He pushes himself up, reaches towards the end of the bed for the boxers he’d thrown over his shoulder in his haste to get naked last night, and pulls them back on with shaky fingers. Then he crawls up and out of bed. The wood floor is cool under his bare feet, but not enough to get socks considering he’ll just have to take them off to get in the shower shortly – and putting on his boxers was more out of courtesy than anything, not that it would really matter regardless of who’s poking about in his kitchen.

The butterflies in his stomach _really_ come to life when he finds Harry standing in the kitchen. He’s facing the opposite way, arranging what looks like McDonald’s breakfast on two plates on the counter in front of him. His heart flutters, and a smile tugs at his lips as walks up next to him. He slips one arm around Harry’s back and uses the other to turn Harry’s face towards his – and he kisses him, soft and slow. Harry tastes like Niall’s toothpaste, and Niall probably tastes the way morning breath smells – only worse because he probably tastes more like stale beer and cum, but if the way Harry moans, low in his throat, is anything to go by then he doesn’t mind.

“What was that for?” Harry asks when they break apart. His voice still sounds groggy, as though he hasn’t been awake for very long.

Niall shrugs as he reaches for one of the two coffee cups on the counter. He can’t say that, for a few moments of panic, he’d thought that Harry had left him. He just- Can’t. “For breakfast,” he murmurs, before taking one large gulp of his coffee. “Duh.”

Harry rolls his eyes despite the smile playing on his lips. “So, I was thinking that while you take a shower after, I’ll get the sheets washed.”

“Yeah?” Niall asks. And, for the first time, Niall realizes that Harry’s hair is still damp and that he smells like Niall’s body wash.

“It’ll save us some time so that we aren’t rushing to the airport later,” Harry says as he pushes one plate – full of greasy goodness – in front of Niall.

And, well, that’s true. Except- “Was kinda hoping you’d shower with me.”

Harry smirks. “Got the rest of our lives for that now, don’t we?”

Niall cocks an eyebrow. “Harry Styles passing up sex- Are you feeling okay?” he teases, pressing a palm against Harry’s forehead as if feeling for a fever.

Harry laughs as he shakes his head. And then he looks at Niall through his eyelashes. “Well- Which would you rather? Shower sex now, or holding out to join the Mile High Club later.”

Niall grins, because there it is. “I should have known,” he drawls.

X

A flight from L.A. back to the U.K. is a long one – a little over 10 hours – and it’s made even longer, this time, by the fact that they don’t get to sit together. All of the seats around where Niall had booked had been taken when Harry had gone to switch his flight, so he’d had to settle with a seat on the aisle on the exact opposite end of the plane. And, for some reason, not sitting together makes Niall feel a bit anxious – which is silly considering Harry wouldn’t have even been on the plane if he hadn’t showed up in his doorway yesterday.

It’s silly and it’s weird, how antsy he feels, to the point where the old man sitting next to him keeps giving him dirty looks because he can’t stop bopping his knee. He tries to distract himself by playing on his phone until the plane takes off, and then he puts on some indie movie he’s never even heard of in a vain attempt to calm the little bouts of anxiety he feels – but neither of those things work. At all. It’s like, for some reason, his whole entire being is wrapped around Harry’s now – again – and he doesn’t feel right, being this far away from him.

The more he thinks on it, though, the more he reckons that it probably has a lot more to do with flying home in general. He’s flying _home_ , after all. _For good_ , this time. And as right as it feels, as good as it is- It’s still a bit daunting. After all this time, he’s moving back home – back to the place where, five months ago, he’d never imagined himself again. And now it’s all that he wants. It’s all that he needs.

And, the thing is, having Harry next to him, instead of at the opposite end of the plane, would make a world of difference in keeping the anxiousness lingering inside his chest at bay.

It’s okay though. He’s okay.

And he’s even more okay when, an hour into the flight, Harry walks past him towards the loo. He’s never really thought much about this thing they call the Mile High Club, but all of a sudden being a part of it is all he wants too.

So, naturally, he follows. And if he comes far too quickly because he’s been anticipating it all day long then, well, nobody except Harry has to know that.

It’s a secret they’ll keep for the rest of their lives.

X

“I want to visit Zayn,” Niall says, as they’re picking up their luggage.

Harry blinks. “Now?”

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be now, just- Later. At some point. I haven’t been since the funeral, and- And I want to,” he murmurs. “I think it’s time.”

“Okay,” Harry nods. “We can get Bobby and Theo to go back home, and then go to the cemetery after.”

“You don’t have to come,” Niall tells him. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to come. I just-“

“I want to,” Harry whispers. “I think it’d be good for both of us.”

Niall nods. They’ve been on English soil now for approximately 20 minutes, and he still feels all kinds of nervous. He feels Harry’s hand alongside his, feels his fingers slip into the spaces between Niall’s. The heat of his skin and the squeeze of his hand are like beacons; they’re like promises, telling him that everything is okay.

X

He sees Theo first.

Theo, with his hair all over the place and a wide grin that takes up half of his face as he sprints towards where Niall and Harry have emerged from the building. He shrieks Niall’s name – _Nile_ – as he runs, and Niall has to let Harry take his suitcase before he gets an armful of the toddler. “You’re back!” Theo yells, digging his face into Niall’s neck.

A smile bursts across Niall’s face as he hold Theo in his arms. “I’m back,” he murmurs.

“Forever, right?” Theo asks. He pulls back, hands on Niall’s shoulders, to look at him with wide eyes full of wonder and hope – and Niall’s heart flutters because this time he doesn’t have to let him down.

“Yes,” Niall say, shifting Theo to the side to rest him on his hipbone just as Bobby’s approaching to grab Niall’s suitcase from Harry. “I’m here forever.”

“Shall we head home, then, lads?” Bobby asks, clapping a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

Hearing the word _home_ and knowing what it means, now, gives Niall goosebumps. He’s home. He’s really, truly home.

Harry’s the first to fall into step with him before Niall follows.

“Bobs said you live wif him now,” Theo says excitedly.

Niall nods. “For now, yeah.”

“Then you live wif Harreh?”

Niall stomach flips and his heart skips a beat at the thought; it’s a thought he’s thought before, but not one he’s let himself think about too much. Not yet, anyway.

Bobby smirks, ahead of them. And when Niall looks sideways, he sees the smile playing on Harry’s lips despite the fact that Harry dips his head to try and hide it.

“You know what I want to do _right now_?” Niall asks, to distract Theo from his own question more than anything.

“Get ice cream?!”

Niall grins. “You read my mind.”

“I want chocolate,” the toddler announces.

It’s simple. It’s, perhaps, the simplest way to spend a warm and sunny summer afternoon, before the jetlag kicks in – and it’s suddenly the only way he wants to spend the next few hours. With his da, and his nephew, and the love of his life. With his family. With his favourite people in the entire world.

_Finally._


End file.
